will sell 200 million cedis ($98 million) in two issues of seven-year domestic bonds, the first time the West African nation is offering debt of the duration as it seeks to raise money to close the budget deficit and reign in inflation.

The bond issue will be open to both local and international investors, although no specific dates for the issue were announced, according to an official statement on the website of the Bank of Ghana (BOG).

The first will be issued in August and the second in November this year. The BOG will sell 100 million Ghana cedis in both August and November.

This sale is different from the $1 billion Eurobond that Ghana will float on the international market at the end of this month.

Ghana’s apex bank has already floated three-year and five-year bonds (traded over-the-counter by banks and are also listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange for secondary trading this year.

Ghana will sell 600 million cedis five-year bonds in September, according to the Bank of Ghana, following on three sales of three-year debt in the first half of the year.

The government has being reeling from a huge budget deficit of 12 percent and the government has forecasted to reduce it to 9% by the end of the current fiscal year.

Already this week, the country’s Finance Ministry has introduced new taxes on imported mobile phones, financial institutions, mobile phone inter-connectivity calls and plastics products. All these new taxes are meant to boost government revenues and close the budget deficit gap.

The country is offering longer-dated bonds amid attempts to boost debt trading and give investors more ways to buy into the second-biggest economy in West Africa.

The Ghanaian currency, the cedi depreciated by 6.9 percent against the US dollar this year.

Ghana started oil production in 2010 and is the second biggest gold producer in Africa.