DDEP: Pressure compelling banks to force customers illegal, unethical - Senyo Hosi

The convener of the Individual bondholders' Forum, Senyo Hosi, has described the "pressure" asking banks to force customers to sign on to the domestic debt exchange programme as illegal and unethical.

According to him, banks are under pressure to coerce their customers to sign onto the programme for the government to achieve its target for participation.

“Unfortunately on the market, we see some conducts that are unethical and also illegal. We see pressure coming from different quarters compelling banks to try and force customers to try and tender or accept the DDE, that is illegal, that is unethical and immoral,” he was quoted by citinewsroom.com.

He added that “the risk of that is that tomorrow the same customer will come and say he accepted that under duress. Who is really going to take responsibility for that?”

Senyo Hosi, therefore, bemoaned the government's unilateral posture concerning suggestions that have been made concerning the programme.

“Up until now, we have essentially seen only unilateral proposals. None of the conversations that were entered into by the technical committee between the government and the individual bondholders has reflected. All the proposals that we made that we talked about almost 83 billion cedis, none has been discussed by the government,” he argued.

The Deputy Finance Minister, Abena Osei-Asare, has stated that so far, the government has about a 50% participation rate as far as the debt exchange programme is concerned.

This is away from the intended 80% participation rate for the successful start of the programme.

“As of yesterday, when we decided to extend and grant that administrative window, we had done above 50 percent,” she was quoted by citinewsroom.com

SSD/FNOQ