Members of the Individual Bondholders Association of Ghana have announced that they will be picketing at the Ministry of Finance for four days, starting from Monday, February 20, 2023.
The association said that despite the police not permitting them to picket, they will do so to put pressure on the government to honour its obligations regarding bonds that have matured.
According to the association, since last week, more than GHC4 million worth of their bonds have matured, but the government is yet to make any payment although they have not signed on to the government’s Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.
Speaking in a JoyNews interview, monitored by GhanaWeb, one of the two lawyers leading the Association, Dr. Joel Akwetey described the situation as unacceptable, stressing that, government can avoid the scheduled picketing by proceeding to pay the bondholders.
“If they [government] do [pays], this picketing will actually not come on. So we’re doing this in phases we expect between this week and next week – the 20th February, I would hear something favourable from the ministry, then we all rest easy,” he said.
He added that, “what we’re simply asking of government is to honor the bonds that are due because before when we went into the DDE Programme, we had an understanding that it’s a voluntary process,” he said.
The lawyers stressed that they want the government to come out and clearly state the terms by which they are going to pay the monies, otherwise, they will join the pensioner bondholders to keep picketing at the Ministry of Finance.
The lawyers further said that the individual bondholders have not deviated from the terms of the agreement they have with the government and they are simply asking for what is due them.
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PI/WA
Pensioner bondholders picketing at the Ministry of Finance