Do not sign up for voluntary debt exchange – IBHAG to bondholders

The Individual Bond Holders Association of Ghana (IBHAG) has cautioned individual bondholders to avoid the temptation of signing up for the exchange of their existing bonds with the new ones floated by government.

“The association further advises all individual bondholders, irrespective of whether they are members of IBHAG or not, to resist the temptation of signing onto the voluntary exchange of their existing bonds with the new ones floated by government, the veiled threats from the Minister of Finance notwithstanding,” a statement signed by lawyer Martin Kpebu on the behalf of the IBHAG said.

The IBHAG further cautioned government against the “inclusion of its members’ investments in the government debt restructuring process without engaging with them.”

According to the IBHAG, “any disregard of this caution will be met with the most fierce resistance yet from its members.”

It disclosed that most of its members are “pensioners, traders, teachers, public servants, individuals who have lost their jobs due to the unfavourable policies of the government.”

The IBHAG noted that: “Some are unemployed. Members have been able to make some savings from their sweat and toil, and have invested from as little as GHS500 in bonds, only for government to rob them of their hard earned savings – both interest and principal – using such an unconscionable debt restructuring process, which targets the individual.”

The association also pondered “what considerations went into the earlier exemption of individual bondholders from the local debt restructuring, only to replace the pension funds with them, after labour had threatened a strike action.”

The IBHAG stressed that its members “cannot be made to suffer for the recklessness and greed that characterised Ghana’s excessive borrowing,” which it alludes as “the reason” for the country’s economic woes.

“Government appointees at the Ministry of Finance cannot make millions of dollars as transaction (borrowing) advisors and go and enjoy with their family and friends, whilst we are denied of the means to purchase our medications and pay for health care. Our inclusion means we cannot pay our children’s school fees, pay for our rent and many other critical essentials.

“’All these hardships are being thrown at us just to protect the greed of those appointees’ a pensioner who is a member of the association said,” the IBHAG stated.

It further bemoaned the Akufo-Addo led-government’s continuous overspending “by maintaining over-bloated government machinery made up of party boys and girls with outrageous pecks.

“Whilst they continue to enjoy, the individual bondholder is being robbed by the government of his or her hard-earned savings in broad daylight, whilst the pecks of the party boys and girls are protected,” the statement went on.

The association also called on “parliament, the Council of State, professional associations, religious bodies, Civil Society Organisations, the media and all well-meaning groups and individuals to join the advocacy against the looting of individual investments that the government has planned.”

Meanwhile, Treasury Bills have been exempted from the government’s debt restructuring programme, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has announced.