Government has secured more than the needed 80% participation in the Domestic Debt Exchange program (DDEP) as part of key steps to reach board level approval with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a $3 billion facility to restore macroeconomic stability in the country.
“The government’s DDEP closed on Friday 10th February 2023 with over 80% participation of eligible bonds” the finance ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Government targeted 80% participation in the program to help restructure 137.3 billion Ghana cedis in bonds on the domestic market to bring its total debt, which stands at about 575.5 billion Ghana cedis to sustainable levels.
The government expressed gratitude to the people of Ghana for the support throughout these very difficult times and said it will consider inputs made by all stakeholders during the DDEP engagements to further streamline government’s expenditures. The finance ministry maintained that the exercise was voluntary and thus the right of the individual to self-exempt was never in doubt.
“Government offered alternatives to encourage individual bondholders and retirees to tender for the new bonds which will have wider secondary market circulation” the statement added.
This comes as Individual bondholders demand outstanding payments on bonds that matured since the 6th of February 2023.
The Individual bondholder’s forum has given a 17th February deadline to the government to make these payments to reengineer public and investor confidence and trust.
Government however says that all individual bondholders and pensioners should rest assured that their coupon payments and maturing principals, like all government bonds, will be honored in line with its fiscal commitments.
Meanwhile the pensioner bondholders’ forum have vowed to protest till their last breath to get issuer exemption from the government. They are asking the government to empathize with them as they seek the security of their investments.
” We will be here (Finance Ministry) until the minister takes us from the program. We are only saying we don’t want to be treated as self exempted people; we want to be treated as issuer exempted people. Exempt us so we can have peace of mind” Dr Adu Anane Antwi , convener of the pensioner bondholders’ Forum told Starr News.
Ghana hopes to reduce its debt to 55% of Gross Domestic Product by 2028 with the debt operation which involves both domestic and external creditors. The completion of the DDEP puts next, engagements with external creditors on a possible debt restructuring.
