Debt Exchange: People will die if there is no safety net for poor pensioners – Prof Adei warns

The former chairman of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Prof Stephen Adei, has warned the government against forcing its Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) on Ghanaians.

According to him, the government must come up with a programme that will protect poor Ghanaians, particularly pensioners who have invested all their retirement benefits into government bonds, asaaseradio.com reports.

He added that if the government fails to protect pensioners, a lot of them might die because of the fear of losing everything.

“The pensioners – my colleagues – it is because when we got our lump sum, our life investments, we invested it into government bonds. So that is what is now at stake.

“… there must be a threshold so that there is a certain minimum. Other than that, some of my colleagues will physically die in a [few] weeks … it is a very serious matter,” Prof Adei is quoted to have said on Asaase Radio's 'The Big Bulletin', on Monday (January 16)

Meanwhile, the invitation to the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme has been extended for the third time to January 31, 2023.

This comes after the second extension by the Finance Ministry expired on Monday, January 16, 2023.

The decision to include individual bondholders was necessitated after the government was forced by labour unions to abandon plans to include pensions in the debt exchange programme which was first announced in December 2022.

IB/DO