Debt Exchange threatens financial institutions, insurance companies – Minority

3 News

Mon 16th Jan, 2023 11:32

The Minority in Parliament has said that the Debt Exchange programme introduced by the government, threatens financial institutions and insurance companies.

Their Leader, Haruna Iddrisu said the sector has not yet recovered from the recapitalisation exercise that was carried out by the government hence, there is no need to institute other directives or programmes such as the debt exchange that will take it through enormous stress again.

“It is a risk to financial institution, insurance companies and now extended to individual bondholders,” Mr Iddrisu said at a press conference in Accra on Monday January 16.

He added “the financial institutions and insurance companies offer employment and they support businesses, this is at risk now.”

The Tamale South Lawmaker further asked President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to suspend the programme and engage further.

“Suspend the ongoing debt exchange, it is already failing, it promises to be a failure.

“Suspend it and engage in deeper consultation and allow for greater transparency In order to save the Ghanaian economy.”

“We demand transparency, they are simply not transparent even in the way they are managing this.”

The debt exchange programme announced by the Finance Minister Mr Ken Ofori-Atta has suffered rejection from Ghanaians.

For instance, Convener of the Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF) Senyo Hosi, said regarding the programme that in an unfortunate oppressive fashion, the government has shown total disregard for the contractual rights of Individual bondholders and has made no effort to structure reasonable consultations with individual bondholders.

In the process, the IBF said, Ghanaians have been presented with painfully stark, impoverishing and unsustainable choices – a situation deeply troubling and wholly untenable.

This is only possible because of the absence of effective representation and the perceived ease of oppressing a dispersed section of investors into submission,” a statement issued by Hosi said.

The Government of Ghana (GoG) announced that under its Domestic Debt Exchange (DDE) programme, individual bondholders were to submit to a “voluntary” arrangement to exchange their domestic bonds for new benchmark bonds.

This arrangement, according to IBF, irreversibly takes away the wealth and livelihoods of direct and indirect individual bondholders whose only crime has been to trust their government.

Tied to this is a mandatory deadline which compels holders to either accept the government’s offer or risk the threat of prohibitive losses, the Forum added.

It stressed “In an unfortunate oppressive fashion, government has shown total disregard for the contractual rights of Individual bondholders and has made no effort to structure reasonable consultations with individual bondholders.

“In the process, we have been presented with painfully stark, impoverishing and unsustainable choices – a situation deeply troubling and wholly untenable.  This is only possible because of the absence of effective representation and the perceived ease of oppressing a dispersed section of investors into submission.”

The Individual Bondholders’ Forum (IBF) is a voluntary group of individual bondholders established with defined governance structures to coordinate and defend the interests of individual bondholders in respect of the DDE program and to engage the Government of Ghana.

By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana

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