Adnan Adams Mohammed
Individual bondholders, Treasury Bills investors are exempted from the government’s debt restructuring programme, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has announced.
Last week, government invited holders of domestic debt to voluntarily exchange approximately GHC137 billion of the domestic notes and bonds of the Republic, including E.S.L.A. and Daakye bonds, for a package of New Bonds to be issued by the Republic.
To this effect, bondholders like pension funds, banks and insurance firms will have to exchange their bonds for one that will earn zero interest next year. The government is currently negotiating a programme with the International Monetary Fund for a $3-billion credit facility programme, thus, necessitating the debt restructuring exercise. However, individual bondholders are excluded from the arrangement.
“Under the programme, domestic bondholders will be asked to exchange their instruments for new ones”, Mr Ofori-Atta announced Sunday evening (4 December 2022), adding: “Existing domestic bonds as of 1st December 2022 will be exchanged for a set of four new bonds maturing in 2027, 2029, 2032 and 2037”.
Also, “the annual coupon on all of these new bonds will be set at 0% in 2023, 5% in 2024 and 10% from 2025 until maturity. Coupon payments will be semi-annual”.
However, Director of Business Operations of Dalex Finance and Leasing Company has called upon bondholders to tell the government to reduce its expenditure before they sign on to the debt exchange programme.
According to Joe Jackson, institutional bondholders can sign a deal with the government that requires the latter to also reduce its size.
“…as much as I think they can’t do much about it and they have to accept it, this is also a unique opportunity to bring the government to the table and say, if I’m going to accept it, then you need to reduce your expenditure. You need to reduce the size of government, reduce the number of ministers, hangers on and appointees who sit all over the place.” he said.
He stated that the programme is a golden opportunity to get the government to listen to some of the things citizens have been asking for.
As a result, Mr Jackson called on the unions who are considering the offer to make something out of the opportunity presented by ensuring government cuts down on its expenditure.
“If we are going to take this amount of pain, I want to see you sharing in the pain and I don’t care that it may not necessarily change the bottom line that much, but the optics matter, the sharing matters,” he said.
It would be recalled that government on December 5, 2022, announced a debt restructuring measure.
According to the Finance Minister, the objective is “to invite holders of domestic debt voluntarily exchange approximately GHC137 billion of the domestic notes and bonds of the Republic, including E.S.L.A. and Daakye bonds, for a package of New Bonds to be issued by the Republic.”
Bondholders like pension funds, banks and insurance firms will have to exchange their bonds for one that will earn zero interest next year.
However, some of the institutions such as the Trade Union Congress, Ghana Medical Association, the Chamber of Corporate Trustees of Ghana among others have already rejected the offer.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Finance Minister, Dr John Kumah has stated that institutional bondholders who reject the programme will have themselves to blame since they will not enjoy the benefits that comes with it.
According to him, interested bondholders have a 10-day period starting from Monday, December 5, 2022, to sign on to the programme.
