The Pensioner Bondholders Forum will begin picketing at the Ministry of Finance today, May 8th, for payment of their matured bonds.
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According to the Forum, this action is required because the government has failed to pay their matured coupons and principals for more than two months despite many assurances.
Dr. Adu Anane Antwi, the group’s convenor, told Citi News that the government’s silence pushed the group to return to the Finance Ministry to picket.
Dr. Anane lamented:
We are fighting for exemptions, we have been exempted, and now we are not being paid. We are fighting for coupons and payments. From March 1, some people said they have received their coupons on the first one while others said on the 5th one. We don’t know which ones they are paying. If they had started paying March 3 and March 5 that is the payment they have started paying. From that time will be about two months and over in arrears. They haven’t said anything and that is the worrying situation.”
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The government has failed to fulfill its responsibilities to elderly bondholders who were exempted from the Domestic Debt Exchange Program, as well as to individual bondholders who did not engage in the scheme.
Meanwhile, Ghana’s President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has appealed to Japan for assistance in obtaining a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The president made the request at a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Accra’s Jubilee House.
Nevertheless, the London-based Economic Intelligence Unit predicts that the International Monetary Fund’s board would likely accept Ghana’s US$3 billion extended loan facility by mid-2023.
The EIU indicated in its most recent report that the delay would be caused by lengthy negotiations between Ghana and its bilateral partners regarding the restructuring of Ghana’s external debt.
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