Convener of the Individual Bondholders Forum, Senyo Hosi, has insisted that the government does not need the participation of individual bondholders in the domestic debt exchange programme.

According to him, data from the Finance Ministry indicate that individual bondholders and collective investment schemes in Ghana form about 11% of the total government bonds held, thus exempting individual bondholders would not be as detrimental as being suggested by some government spokespersons.

The Finance Ministry had earlier indicated that it needed about 80% of bondholders subscribing to the domestic debt exchange programme.

“So my question, why are you chasing this 6.5million livelihoods? What have they done to you? They’ve earned their money, they’ve entrusted you with their taxes since 2017, if you’ve mismanaged it, if you’ve failed to optimize it and you’ve come to them to ask them to pay more, they’ve also accepted that we’ll pay more ... But now if we’ve done all that, in fact now you want to put your hands inside our pocket? I mean why?” he said on JoyNews’ PM Express.

Senyo Hosi has thus reiterated calls for individual bondholders to be fully exempted from the process in order to save the livelihoods of the 6.5 million Ghanaians who would be directly affected if government pushes through with their plan.

In the meantime, the Ghana Individual Bondholders Forum has been invited to a meeting with Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta on Wednesday, January 18, 2023.

This follows a petition to the Minister for members to be excluded from the government’s domestic debt exchange programme.

Among other things, the forum which consists of persons holding investments in the Government of Ghana’s Local Cedi Bonds, Government of Ghana’s Local USD Bonds, ESLA PLC Bonds, Daakye Bonds, Ghana Eurobonds, and others say the announcement of the programme has been extremely unsettling and catastrophic for its members and others affected.

The group argues that the programme is one of the harshest debt restructuring measures ever adopted and when allowed to be rolled out will impoverish its members.

Again its members have largely faulted government for failing to consult with them prior to their later addition to the policy.