Deputy Managing Director of the National Investment Bank (NIB) and member of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Alfred Thomson has called for calm following the implementation of the debt exchange programme announced by the government.
He said, just the same way they settled customers of the now-defunct DKM microfinance company, no bondholder will lose their investment.
“When DKM was shut down and depositors were not paid for years, didn’t the government come out to pay them?”
“If you haven’t gotten your money, then it means that when the auditors were doing their work, maybe your documents weren’t satisfactory because anyone can bring a paper and say, I have invested so pay me. But the auditors also had to do their work and based on the work that they did, they knew that they had paid everyone. So if with DKM that we didn’t have anything to do with it, we were able to pay the people, do you think under our own nose, we will not pay our people?”
He, therefore, called on the groups opposing the debt exchange programme to collaborate with the government to find a lasting solution to the country’s unsustainable debt situation.
“In every situation, there is a cure so let’s sit down and have cool heads in having this cure. We should not just get up and say let’s oppose because the moment you start doing that, everyone will start to agitate.”
In view of the country’s worrying debt situation and the bailout being sought from the International Monetary Fund, the Government of Ghana announced a domestic debt exchange programme to help give it some respite.
Per the programme, bondholders will not lose their principal but are to exchange their old bonds for new ones.
