Members of the Pensioner Bondholders Forum have returned to the premises of the Finance Ministry to picket and demand payment of outstanding coupons on matured bonds.
The government has defaulted on payments for coupons on matured bonds for pensioner bondholders who were exempted from the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) and to individual bondholders who did not participate in the programme.
Members of the Pensioner Bondholders Forum explained that the government has failed to pay their matured coupons and principals for more than two months.
Government’s Silence
Speaking to the media on the first day of the protest, convener of forum Dr Adu Anane Antwi said the government’s silence compelled the group to return to the Finance Ministry to picket.
“We were fighting for exemptions, we have been exempted, and now we are not being paid. We are fighting for coupons and payments.”
Dr Adu Anane Antwi
Meanwhile last week, Dr Joel Akwetey, a leading member of the Individual Bondholders Association of Ghana (IBHAG), served notice that the association will suspend it’s boycott of the Ministry of Finance Technical Committee in order to continue engagement and advocacy for bondholders.
The new position of the reversal of the Individual Bondholders Association of Ghana was reversal of IBHAG’s earlier position to withdraw from the technical committee, which was announced in a news release a couple of weeks ago.
Dr Joel Akwetey indicated that the group will continue to participate in the deliberations of the technical committee set up by the Finance Ministry to address the concerns of Ghanaian bondholders in the domestic debt exchange programme.
The IBHAG and IBF are both organizations that represent individual bondholders in Ghana. While there have been suggestions for the two organizations to merge, they have maintained their separate identities due to their divergent approaches to tackling the issue of locked-up funds. Despite this, both organizations share the common goal of advocating for the interests of individual bondholders.
This was as a result of Ghana’s efforts to restructure its debt. Ghana defaulted on its external debts in December and has since sealed a domestic debt swap and requested a restructuring of its bilateral debts via the G20’s Common Framework vehicle.
It estimated that Ghana’s international sovereign bonds would need an average coupon reduction of 30%-50% and five-year maturity extension, with no cut in the principal value, to cover the country’s forecasted $4.5 billion financing gap in the next three years.
Meanwhile, under the Programme, domestic bondholders were asked to exchange their instruments for new ones. Existing domestic bonds as of 1st December 2022 were exchanged for a set of four new bonds maturing in 2027, 2029, 2032 and 2037. The annual coupon on all of these new bonds will be set at 0% in 2023, 5% in 2024 and 10% from 2025 until maturity.
READ ALSO: NDC To Provide Clarifications On Dual Citizenship In The Constitution After 2024 Win
