Post DDEP: People may not invest in securities at all – Dr. Anane

The former Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Dr. Adu Anane-Antwi, has stated that one of the effects of the Domestic Debt Exchange programme is that people may not be able to save in financial institutions.

According to him, this has made investments unattractive for a lot of people in Ghana.

He was quoted to have said on JoyNews that “After what people have gone through when they get their principal back, they might not invest in no securities at all. And many of them are targeting buying hard dollars or currency and keeping it. And when the rates go up, they’ll just go sell part of it for their daily expenses.”

Dr. Anane-Antwi continued, “So post-DDEP people have started losing confidence in financial securities and therefore they won’t be surprised if after this you see a lot of people even though it will not be on that scale at that level, but a lot of people going to change their small 1000 cedis, 10,000 cedis, 20,000 cedis into dollars or pounds or euro instead of using to buy either government securities or private securities.

The Convener for the Pensioner Bondholders further added that government securities were thought to be the safest investment option therefore if has been clouded by more uncertainties, people may not have the confidence to invest at all.

“Because mind you, we have said that government securities are the safest in town. So if the safest has also become unsafe, then nobody will rely on the private ones the banks are issuing.

“So, people are now thinking about saving their money, investing their money outside the financial system. And that is the confidence I’ve been talking about, now people don’t have confidence in the market, so let me put in dollars. So, there’ll be pressure on the cedi. People will be taking the proceeds from their bonds and will be using it to buy dollars or pound sterling or euro as an investment,” he said.

SSD/NOQ

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