The Pensioner Bondholders Forum has advised government to seek funding from the treasury bills market to settle their matured investments.

Government promised to pay the bondholders who were exempted from the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP), but the Finance Ministry has failed to make the settlement.

Speaking to Joy Business, the convener of the forum, Dr. Adu Anane Antwi, said government must pay them their investments, else their members will resume picketing at the Finance Ministry from Monday May 8 2023.

“The government can take money from the treasury bills market to pay us. That will increase that debt of the government but we want our money. The government is the issuer - the issuer of the bond must pay us”, he stressed.

He pointed out that an issuer is always expected to plan the cash flow to meet coupon payments and the principals.

Dr. Antwi was appalled that bondholders who were exempted from the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme were assured of prompt payment, but are being made to go through hardship to access their own funds.

“We are pensioners. We need this money for important things such as drugs and upkeep. After serving the nation, you don’t expect pensioners to go through this ordeal for their own money”, he lamented.

He insisted that government cannot posit that it has no money to pay bondholders when the treasury bills market is a viable option.

“We have notified the policy makers that we will picket at the Ministry of Finance again from next week Monday [May 8, 2023] if we do not get our coupon and principal payments”, he said.

Pensioner bondholders threaten to picket

On April 15, 2023 the Pensioner Bondholders Forum threatened to resume its picketing at the premises of the Ministry of Finance if the government fails to pay all outstanding coupons and principals of bond investments by April 28, 2023.

This it said at the time will put an end to delay in payments.

In a statement signed by its Convener, Dr. Adu Anane Antwi, it expressed disappointment about the government’s inconsistency regarding assurances to pay all pensioners their outstanding coupons and principals of bond investments.

A Press Release dated April 14, 2023 from the Ministry of Finance indicated that a meeting held with the leadership of Coalition of Individual Bondholders groups and the Pensioners Bondholders Forum indicated that the Joint Technical Committee constituted on January 18, 2023 reconvenes and agrees on a pathway, towards the settlement of the outstanding debt obligations by April 28, 2023.

However, the Pensioners Bondholders Forum denied that no such decision was reached.