From The New Statesman

Moody’s Investor Service and Standard & Poor’s have both revised their respective rating outlooks on Ghana from Stable to Negative. Moody’s had assigned its B1 rating (equivalent to B+) on the country in December 2012 while Standard & Poor had maintained a Stable Outlook since August 2010 when the agency downgraded Ghana to B (from B+).

Moody’s Investors Service provides international financial research on bonds issued by commercial and government entities and, with Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Group, is considered one of the Big Three credit rating agencies.

The company ranks the creditworthiness of borrowers using a standardized ratings scale which measures expected investor loss in the event of default.

In Moody’s ratings, system securities are assigned a rating from Aaa to C, with Aaa being the highest quality and C the lowest quality.

Moody’s currently rates Ghana a notch above both S&P (B, negative) and Fitch (B, stable), which downgraded Ghana by single notch in October 2013.

Although Moody’s has a higher rating, the reasons for the change in Moody’s and S&P’s outlooks are similar: Ghana’s continued fiscal weaknesses remain at the fore, and external vulnerabilities are seen increasing.

Moody’s says, given continued risks on the fiscal and external accounts, “there is an increased probability of a further downgrade of Ghana’s ratings in 2014.”

Read more at The New Statesman