The Finance Ministry says it engaged all the relevant stakeholders in its debt exchange programme. 

According to the Ministry, all direct institutional bondholders were engaged and consulted in the process. 

Deputy Finance Minister, Dr John Kumah has stated. 

Speaking in a media interview on Tuesday, December 13, the Ejisu MP, however, said the Ministry could not engage all indirect beneficiaries. 

He added that the government will continue its engagements with the rest of the parties involved. 

“We have to clarify this issue of stakeholder engagement. Let me state categorically that, all direct institutional bondholders were firmly engaged and consulted in the process. 

But we could not exhaust the indirect beneficiaries, like the Unions who are not direct bondholders. And of course, we couldn’t have exhausted all interested parties. 

Even though government has announced the programme, we are still engaging unions and interested stakeholders who are not direct bondholders, and of course beneficiaries of such schemes,” Dr Kumah said. 

The debt restructuring will see a slash in interest payments for domestic bondholders to zero per cent in 2023 and five per cent in 2024.

Existing domestic bonds as of December 1, 2022, will also be exchanged for a set of four new bonds maturing in 2027, 2029, 2032 and 2037 – all in a bid of restoring the nation’s capacity to service its debt.

Under the programme, however, treasury bills and individual bondholders will not be affected while there will be no ‘haircuts’ on the principal of bonds, government said.

But since the announcement, a number of groups had publicly voiced their rejection of the programme. 

Groups such as the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) and others have openly rejected the idea.

According to them, the move will not auger well for their members.