Adnan Adams Mohammed
A finance analyst has said, from the way the finance minister is going about with the Domestic Debt Exchange program, is making the whole structure and procedure confusing.
The analyst explains that, Ken Ofori-Atta has done two turnarounds in less than a week on the structure and procedure for the debt exchange.
After a crunch meeting between government and organised labour, forthnight ago, after the later had threatened a nationwide industrial action if pension funds are not exempted from the exchange program, the finance minister announced that pensioners’ money are individuals’ funds that are managed by Trustees and as such should also be exempt same as an Individual funds invested in government bonds which were already exempted.
A day later after exempting the pension funds, the Mr Ofori-Atta announced new modalities for the exchange program but now including individual funds invested in government bonds.
“So now, on what basis are pensioners’ funds invested in government bonds exempt?”, Alex Mould quizzed.
“I am confused even more than I was yesterday. It is like studying Thermodynamics. The more you learn the less you know!!”
According to a senior fellow at IMANI Africa, Bright Simmons, the debt program represents, undoubtedly, the largest single transfer of wealth from the Ghanaian private sector to the government in a single fiscal measure, in living memory.
It is equivalent to doubling taxes on the entire corporate sector and giving the bill to only banks, insurance companies, pension funds and a few other investor categories to pay.
Due to the Ghana-IMF programme, the government has announced measures to deal with the economic crisis including the debt exchange programme, freezing of public sector employment, and a haircut on all government bonds among others.
