Excluding individual bondholders from DEP will have no negative effects – Economist

Chartered Economist Emmanuel Amoah Darkwah has opined that the request by individual bondholders to be exempted from the Debt Exchange Programme is feasible.

Speaking on the issue on Frontline on Rainbow Radio 87.5Fm, he stated that the request by the bondholders is possible.

He said statistics available have revealed that the individual bondholders amount to 16 billion, and in all the debt exchange programme, the government wants to exchange 167.3 billion Ghana cedis, and per the calculations, an 80 percent buy-in would lead to some level of success rate.

”If you look at that statistics, excluding individual bondholders would be helpful,” he said.

He has, however, questioned whether the government’s current approach is the best and only option available to us.

“The bigger picture is whether the policy option we chose is the best we can do. For my part, I believe it was past time to implement major fiscal reforms. The country is in debt and in crisis. What can the government do now on its own budget to entice those you are urging to support you?

It appears that the government is hesitant to implement serious fiscal reforms. We advised you to reduce the size of the government, but you refused. “How can people help you?”

He lamented that if the debt exchange programme is implemented in its current form, the consequences for the banking sector, insurance, and pensions, as well as individuals, would be worse than the banking sector clean-up.