“As an advocacy group that speaks for the vulnerable in society, the Board has looked into the concerns of the Individual Bondholders Association of Ghana (IBHAG), the Pension Bondholders Forum, our church members and the general public and has identified the shortcomings of the debt restructuring program, the main one being the lack of consultation with affected individuals and institutions.
“With the current economic difficulties in the country and agitations among the general public, it is in the interest of the nation for the Ministry of Finance to postpone the deadline of January 31 given to individuals to enter the program and even propose a road map for dialogue. to create a participatory process so that the results can be accepted for entire.
However, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta said the cancellation of the program was not possible.
He said it was very important for the country’s economic recovery.
However, he said the government could modify some of the terms given to individual bondholders.
Speaking on an unaired episode of PM Express Business Edition, Mr Ofori-Atta promised that his outfit would address some of the concerns of bondholders and individual pensioners.
He told George Wiafe that “we have a situation where the exchange of our debt is necessary… I think we have succeeded.
“In the same way, we’re sitting with the Union pension, and I think we’ve made a lot of progress in terms of what we’re doing. In the same way we’re sitting with individual bondholders to see how we can tweak this. Are we going to lose a little bit of what we have ?I think we are all going. But we have to make sure that what we are going to do will create sustainability,” he said.
The Ministry of Finance has set up a technical committee to further involve individual bondholders in the debt exchange program.