Minority lacks understanding of bond process – Ofori-Atta

Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has said the $2.25 billion bond issued by the government two months ago was done transparently without breaching any rules, adding that attempts by the Minority to attack the process was borne of its lack of understanding of the issuance process.

Responding on the floor of parliament to a half-motion filed by the Minority, Mr Ofori-Atta said the Ministry of Finance “had no direct dealings with investors” in the process of issuing the bond.

“All prospective bidders bid through their primary dealers, who in turn submitted the investor’s bids through the Central Securities Depository platform. The joint transaction advisers then collate these bids to build up a book on which the bonds are issued.

“At no time during the book building process did the Ministry of Finance negotiate with any investor in any way, and it will indeed be quite difficult to manipulate the process when the three financial institutions are governed strictly by the Bank of Ghana’s rules and regulations,” Mr Ofori-Atta added.

He insisted “there were no breaches of integrity either on government’s part or on the joint book runner’s part.”

“It may be tempting to say that the apparent attempt to manufacture some form of integrity deficit is generally borne out of a lack of understanding of the actual process,” Mr Ofori-Atta noted.

The Minority accused Mr Ofori-Atta of cooking up the bond for one investor and issuing it in secrecy, thus, the half-motion filed which necessitated the Minister’s presence in parliament on Wednesday.