Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has stated that if a bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not obtained by mid-March, Ghana’s economy will come to a halt.
Addressing Pensioner bondholders who have resisted their inclusion in a domestic debt exchange programme on Monday, February 6, the Finance Minister pleaded with pensioners to accept a 3.5% cut and the new terms of a 15% coupon rate and 5% maturity.
“We really feel that government has listened, there is humanity to us, we are protecting the destitute, widows and the orphans and the older people who have worked for this nation. We are in a crisis, we cannot put our heads under the sun and pretend that we are not.
“We need to be mindful that we really need to be successful in going to the fund by this March to avoid what we all experienced last year which we all don’t want to experience again.”
Pensioners who bought government bonds on Monday, February 6, 2023, protested at the Finance Ministry, demanding that their bonds be exempted from the government’s domestic debt exchange program.
Pensioners in the Pensioner Bondholders Forum want the government to exempt them entirely from the debt exchange. They believe that including their bonds will have a negative impact on their livelihoods.
The invitation to holders of government bonds to participate in the program expires tomorrow, Tuesday, February 7, 2023.
