The Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has assured the general public that the Akufo-Addo administration cares for the lives and livelihoods of Ghanaians.
According to him, the government’s desire to protect lives and livelihoods was seen in how it handled the covid situation.
Going forward, he said, the government will continue to act in ways to protect all Ghanaians.
On Wednesday, January 18, a joint technical committee has been constituted by Mr Ofori-Atta, to look into concerns raised by individual bondholders ahead of the rollout of the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.
This was announced by the minister following a crunch meeting with the bondholders under the umbrella body Ghana Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF) on Wednesday, January 18.
The Forum had petitioned the Minister to be excluded from the Programme, which has been scheduled to be rolled out after Tuesday, January 31.
They claimed they have not been adequately engaged by government in an attempt to include their bonds in the Programme.
They accused the government of short-changing them especially as the Programme comes at a time a promise was made there will no haircuts to such investments.
Interacting with journalists after the meeting with the individual bondholders, Finance Minister Ofori-Atta indicated that the Programme is not mandatory and remains voluntary.
He, therefore, urged bondholders to subscribe to the Programme to help the government in efforts to address the economic challenges.
He said “I think the clarity for all of us is that it is a voluntary programme. We have anticipated maybe getting up to 80 per cent which will still put us under the parameter, so we are asking everybody to really join.
“The Forum reiterated their concerns which are legitimate concerns for all individuals and for the country at large. In the same way, in which we met members of the Pensions group, we set up a technical committee and they will be meeting immediately [Thursday January 19], we don’t want to miss the deadline that we have set. We are confident that we will get there.
“The clarity for all of us is that it is a voluntary programme, we have anticipated getting up to 80 per cent which will still put us in the parameter so we are asking everybody to join.
“The government continues to be a government that cares for people, lives and livelihoods as we saw in Covid, we protected and going forward too we will protect but also ensure the Community of the Republic crosses the Jordan safely, that is the challenge we have.”
The committee is expected to begin sitting on Thursday, January 19.