IBHAG attends DDEP committee meeting despite recusal announcement

The Bondholders Association of Ghana (IBHAG) appears to have gone back on its decision to withdraw from the Technical Committee of the government's Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).

The association last week announced that it had recused itself from the committee due to a lack of alignment with the interests of its members.

However, latest developments indicate that representatives of IBHAG attended the technical committee’s virtual meeting held on April 27, 2023.

“Contrary to its stated position however, two representatives of IBHAG attended the technical committee’s virtual meeting held on Thursday morning.

“They made contributions and backed the proposals by the Individual Bondholders’ Forum to help ease the burden of the DDEP on individual bondholders.

“Also in attendance at the meeting were representatives of IBF and officials of the Finance Ministry. IBHAG and IBF both represent individual bond holders. There have been suggestions for the two of them to merge but as their approaches differ, they have remained as distinct entities even though both of them are working towards the same goal,” the Individual Bondholders said.

IBHAG last week accused sister body, the Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF) of not pushing the interest of its members and announced the decision to withdraw from the committee.

IBHAG's convener, Martin Kpebu, noted that the government could not continue to ignore the suffering of individual bondholders, who are being punished for not signing up to the DDEP, and asked for a more sensitive and humane approach to alleviating their plight.

“The Government cannot continue to be insensitive to the suffering of the individual bond holders by deliberately punishing those who did not sign up to the DDEP as it meticulously executes the various threats made to them for not signing up. The Ministry cannot keep making things comfortable for the government by not sharing in the burden of the economic hardship we are in as a country under its leadership,” the group noted.

Kpebu also criticized the Convener of the Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF), Senyo Hosi, for his wavering views and alleged closeness to the Ministry of Finance.

“Senyo Hosi of IBF, appears to be an appendage of the Ministry of Finance; doing its bidding. This is supported by the wavering views, which departs completely from the past collective position of individual bondholders. Private meetings between Senyo Hosi of IBF and the Ministry of Finance, are not the solutions to the concerns of Individual Bondholders whose coupon and principal payments have been in arrears for over two months,” he said.

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