Martin Kpebu, an attorney representing a group of individual bondholders, has stated that his clients will not accept the government’s revised Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
Using its most recent offer to individual bondholders as justification, the government pushed up the deadline for voluntarily participating in the DDEP from January 31, 2023, to February 14, 2023.
To entice individual bondholders under the age of 59 to take part in the DDEP, the most recent offer comprises instruments with a maximum maturity of 5 years rather than 15 years and a 10% coupon rate.
Additionally, all retirees (including those retiring in 2023) will be offered instruments with a maximum maturity of 5 years instead of 15 years and a 15% coupon rate.
Reacting to this in an interview on Neat FM monitored by GhanaWeb on Wednesday, lawyer Kpebu said that the individual bondholders will not accept the new deal by the government because it makes them worse off.
He refuted assertions that the government has no money to pay bondholders, saying that the increase in the government’s expenditures in the 2023 budget shows that the government has money.
“We are not happy with the new offer, and we are not going to accept it. If we accept the new deal, it will make us worse off.
“A government that says it does not have money is spending 40 percent more than it spent last year in some sectors and 20 percent more in other sectors. How can a government that says it has no money be spending more? It doesn’t make sense,” he said in Twi.
“The government must reduce its expenditure; it must suspend some projects for at least one year. We live on the interest of our bonds, the government cannot tell us it does not have money to pay us while it is constructing new projects,” the lawyer added.