Government is taking administrative steps to ensure that payments of coupons and principals of old bonds resume by March 13, 2023, the Ministry of Finance has said.

The Ministry has also indicated that newly issued bonds that have been settled and listed will become the new benchmark bonds for the fixed-income market.

“The Ministry of Finance will work with relevant stakeholders, as agreed, to ensure that these new benchmark securities become the basis for deepening the domestic sovereign bond market, ” a statement from the Ministry read.

Prior to the release of the statement, a coalition of three individual bondholder groups had a meeting with Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Minister of Finance on Monday.

The purpose of the meeting was to seek clarity on the modalities and exact dates for the settlement of bonds that were due for payment during the period of the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
“Remember in the DDEP, they had indicated that they were suspending payment for the period of the programme.

Originally, the settlement date was supposed to be Feb 14 but was moved to February 21, Mr Senyo Hosi, Converner of the Individual Bondholders Forum said during an interview.

He said the coalition, which also included Pensioners Bondholders Forum and the Individual Bond Holders Association of Ghana (IBHAG) was willing to collaborate with government as it expected government to be fair to all the old bondholders.

According to the coalition a letter was written on February 13 to the Finance Ministry on when government intended to honour its obligations.

Mr Hosi said: “Unfortunately, we never had a firm response to that. We saw publications that were indirectly responding to our letter but still without the exact commitment that gives investor clarity”
He added that the government had given assurance, going forward, to” improve and keep communication channels open and clear.”

“We are hoping that today will mark a good start towards recovery on the lack of information that has bedeviled the industry and payments that have been suspended, ” he said.