Former Chief Justice (CJ) Sophia Akuffo has called on Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to go back to the drawing board and come up with a proposal that will suit both bondholders and government.
According to the former CJ, until this is done, the contract that was entered into when the bonds were acquired is still valid.
Speaking to journalists when she joined the Pensioner Bondholders on their fifth day of picketing to drive home their demands that their investments be exempted from government’s Domestic Debt Exchange (DDE) programme, on Friday, 10 February 2023, Ms Akuffo explained her reason for joining in the picketing.
She said: “I’m seeing it purely from a legal point of view, their contractual rights being threatened. Then I have to say something. I have to join them in solidarity.
“Their pain is my pain because I have retired sisters, I have retired friends, and so on and so forth.”
The former CJ encouraged the bondholders to kick against the 15 percent coupon rate proposal by government.
“The Minister of Finance should better go back to the drawing board and come up with a better proposal otherwise nobody is going to agree to it.
“I am encouraging people not to agree with it. A contract is a contract, and it must be respected and if you want to renegotiate, come to the table with humility and come with ‘yesable’ proposal,” she stated.
She also questioned how the country reached its current economic mess and demanded that government be accountable to the citizenry by being transparent.
“Why are we in the mess? Nobody has fully explained to us, yes we took debt, what was it used for? And where is the accountability? Exactly what was it used for? You are not telling us about how you are going to be able to make things better but just that ‘help me and I help you’, no, you help yourself first, let me see you doing something serious because we have seen these sorts of things too many times.
“I am over 70 years now, I am no longer government employed, my mouth has been ungagged, and I am talking, and I am saying that we have failed, and it is important that the elderly should be respected. I find this wicked, I find it disrespectful, I find it unlawful, I find it totally wrong,” the former CJ charged.
The picketing by the Pensioner Bondholders Forum at the Ministry of Finance, has entered day five, today Friday, 10 February 2023.
Members of the Pensioner Bondholders Forum continued their picketing today to drive home their demands that their investments be exempted from government’s DDE programme.
A 15 percent coupon rate has been proposed by government, however, the group has said it will not accept any haircuts on investments.
According to the group, it will not accept the haircuts on investments because the livelihood of its members depends on the proceeds.
Some members of the group have indicated they buy their medications and other essentials from the proceeds made from their investments hence they want government to totally exempt their investments.
“We deserve total exemption, we have earned it. Total exemption,” the pensioner bond holders told Class News.
Meanwhile, the window for bondholders to complete tender processes under the DDE programme has been extended by government despite the Tuesday, 7 February 2023, deadline that had earlier been given.
The extension was necessitated by technical glitches that some of the bondholders faced as “they tried to complete the online tender process,” to enable those who were unable to finish the process do so.
Such persons have up to three days to complete the process.
The Finance Ministry in a statement signed by the Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, announced: “As a result, Government is providing bondholders with a window to complete processes for tendering their bonds, in response to the terms of exchange as amended pursuant to the 2nd Amended and Restated Exchange Memorandum. This window ends on Friday, 10th February 2023 at 4:00 p.m. (GMT).”
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