Dr. Amoako Baah, a senior member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said that the government's announcement of a debt operation after President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo categorically stated that government bond holders will not lose their money is a disgrace to the president.
According to him, the move shows that the president has no credibility, and nobody, including international investors, will have trust in his words.
Speaking in a Neat FM interview monitored by GhanaWeb, Dr. Baah said that the handlers of the president should not have allowed him to make the 'haircut statement' if they were not sure of it.
"Now we are not going to have only haircuts, they are going to cut our ears. The handlers of the president should not be allowing him to be making some statements.
"The no haircut comment he made was stupid. Is he a financial man? He was not the one who was supposed to talk about it. The finance minister is the one supposed to talk about things like this.
"He has disgraced himself. This shows that the president has no credibility. If you don't know something, why would you talk about it? If you are a president, you must only talk about things you are sure of," he said in Twi.
It can be recalled that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo refuted suggestions that his government would buy off government bonds at rates lower than their expected returns, i.e., "haircut on government bonds."
Addressing the nation on measures being taken by the government to rescue the economy on Sunday, October 31, Akufo-Addo said: "I also want to assure all Ghanaians that no individual or institutional investor, including pension funds, in government treasury bills or instruments will lose their money as a result of our ongoing IMF negotiations.
"There will be no "haircuts", so I urge all of you to ignore the false rumours, just as, in the banking sector clean-up, the government ensured that the 4.6 million depositors affected by the exercise did not lose their deposits."
However, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the Minister of Information, later came out to explain Akufo-Addo's assurances that there would be no haircut and that only the principals would be covered.
The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, has now announced a number of measures under the government's Domestic Debt Exchange (DDE) programme.
He stated in a 4-minute address that the announcement was in line with the government's Debt Sustainability Analysis as contained in the 2023 budget he presented to Parliament on November 24.
The minister laid out, among other things, the exchange of existing domestic bonds with four new ones, as well as their maturity dates and terms of coupon payments.
He also addressed the overarching goal of the government relative to its engagements with the International Monetary Fund as well as measures to minimize the impact of domestic bond exchange on different stakeholders.
"The Government of Ghana has been working hard to minimize the impact of the domestic debt exchange on investors holding government bonds, particularly small investors, individuals, and other vulnerable groups," he said, before outlining three main measures:
• Treasury Bills are completely exempted and all holders will be paid the full value of their investments on maturity.
• There will be NO haircut on the principal of bonds.
• Individual holders of bonds will not be affected.
Watch the interview below:
Watch the second part of Elvis Afriyie Ankrah's interview on GhanaWeb TV below:
Also watch the nomination for the GhanaWeb Excellence Awards Youth Edition below:
Dr. Amoako Baah (left), President Akufo-Addo (right)