ACCRA - Consumer inflation in Ghana slowed slightly to 53.6% year on year in January after hitting a more than two-decade high of 54.1% in December, the statistics service said on Wednesday.

Ghana is reckoning with its worst economic crisis in years as capital outflows, currency pressures and a crushing debt-service burden wreak havoc on public finances.

The government on Tuesday announced the closure of a long-delayed domestic debt exchange plan, but it must now restructure its external obligations before obtaining executive board approval for a $3 billion rescue package from the International Monetary Fund.

(Reporting by Christian Akorlie and Cooper Inveen; Editing by Nellie Peyton and Alexander Winning)