Features
Why this unnecessary burden on pensioners and individual bond holders in the country?
Treasury Bonds are medium term debt instruments (Securities) issued by the Government of Ghana and sold to individuals or companies to raise funds for a specific time at a fixed or variable interest rate. The bonds have maturity periods exceeding two years.
Over here in Ghana, there is no upper limit but a maximum limit of GHc500.00 is required for the purchase of a bond. It generally includes a commitment to pay periodic interest called coupon payment and to repay the face value on the maturity date.
BENEFITS FROM BONDS
Unlike savings, bonds, especially those from government and major companies tend to be a safe investment. They can offer much higher return than savings account. The nature of this facility, has encouraged the majority of companies and individuals to rope onto the scheme with the intentsion of recouping sizeable interests to support them in various ways and endeavours. Even most employers in the country have taken advantage of the immense benefits to register their workers on the scheme.
In recent times, the government in its determination to revive the country’s ailing economy, has adopted a number of measures including a suspension on payment of external debt.
It,therefore, announced a Domestic Debt Exchange Programme which requires institutional holders of eligible bonds to agree to writing to the Central Securities Depository (CSD) to exchange their current holdings to new ones.
DOMESTIC DEBT EXCHANGE AND PENSION FUND
Initially, the government announced that Pension funds would be included in the debt exchange programme but Organised Labour, stood firmly against the decision which many believed was part of the conditions spelt out in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) laid out processes for the economic bailout. Organised Labour including the Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana (CLOGSAG) and the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), had all rejected the government’s attempt to include the pension funds in the debt exchange program.
According to organised Labour, it was against the law for the government to touch the pension funds. While CLOGSAG and the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) served notice that members would embark on industrial action, should the government fail to heed their call, the ICU also stated that it would be compelled to join other labour unions to demonstrate against such measures by the government.
After series of meetings between the government and Organised Labour on that thorny issue, the general consensus was to exempt the pension funds from the debt restructuring programme.
Hear the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations Mr. Ignatius Baffour Awuah, on the outcome of the meeting on Thursday, December 22, 2022. “Government and the organised labour will work together to resolve all issues to make the program successful towards the restoration of macroeconomic stability of the country.”
INDIVIDUAL BONDHOLDERS
It is surprising to know that after the attempts to include the pension funds on the debt restructuring programme had failed, the government has now turned its attention on individual domestic bondholders, as part of measures to salvage the ailing economy.
In the latter part of December last year, the government invited individual bond holders to exchange their old bond holdings for new ones with extended maturity in a domestic debt exchange programme. The invitation to this exchange programme, expired on January 16, 2023, at 4 pm, but the deadline has been extended to 31st January, 2023, at 4 pm.
According to the government, this exchange programme, would allow the country to restore sound public finance and sustainable debt levels and to kick-start economic growth, following the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. It noted that the alternative to the debt exchange would be far worse economic crisis with protracted closure from international markets, including imported goods and services, and further domestic both for the real economy and the financial sector. It would also mean depleted fiscal resources to support the neediest.
INITIAL EXEMPTION OF INDIVIDUAL BONDHOLDERS
It is recalled that individual bondholders were initially exempted from the Domestic Debt Exchange Prrogramme that the government launched on Monday, December 5, 2022.
However, the Finance Minister, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta, in announcing the exemption of pension funds from the Debt Exchange Programme in response to recommendations by major stakeholders on December 22, 2022, said it would come at a cost.
It is important to state that the government has reached staff level agreement with its negotiation with the IMF for a three-billion-dollar bailout. Therefore, the amendment in debt Exchange programme is necessary to reach a Management and Board levels agreement with the IMF.
THREATS OF LEGAL SUIT AGAINST GOVERNMENT
This latest development has sparked off threats of legal suit in court by individual bond holders against the government. According to the Vice President of IMANI, Ghana, an Economic Think Tank, Bright Simons, three groups representing individual bond holders, have commenced mobilisation to file legal suit against the government for including individual bond holders in the Debt Exchange Programme. He explained in a tweet that individual/retail investors to Ghana’s debt default would increase the risk of litigation.
While some of these individual bond holders have threatened to commit suicide if the government fails to heed their call to rescind its decision of including their bonds on the debt exchange programme, since the benefits from that investments are the source of their livelihood and, therefore, taking them away from them mean, killing them softly, others have complained that profits from the bonds, are what they depend on to cater for their families, including their children’s school fees.
According to them, times are hard and the cost of living is unbearable, hence the profits from their investment are what they use to cushion themselves.
A number of prominent personalities including the Majority Leader in Parliament have cautioned against this latest move to involve individual bond holders in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme, saying it is dangerous for the country’s development.
According to Mr Osei-Kyei-Mensah Bonsu, the progamme could wipe out the middle class and negatively affect the savings culture of Ghanaians. He has suggested that the Finance Minister should properly engage with the major stakeholders.
The Minority caucus in Parliament has also called for total suspension of the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme and suggested a national economic crisis dialogue by stakeholders to discuss the whole issue, including the individual bondholders matter.
ECONOMY IN SHAMBLES
It is a fact that the economy is in a state of comma and our doctors will simply put it that it is receiving serious medical attention at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at a medical facility with all the life supporting gadgets including oxygen and drips fixed on it. The moment, you dismantle these supporting gadgets, means death.
It is so sad that, managers of our economy have supervised the economy to that extent of deterioration, despite other natural factors like COVID-19 and Russian-Ukraine war, which they have always relied upon to defend themselves anytime they are criticised.
What is amazing, is for the fact that our finest economists and financial analysts, keep giving pieces of advice to government that will help revamp the ailing economy, but because of political expediencies, these practical and reasonable advice and suggestions are constantly ignored and left in the burner, hence the situation we find ourselves at the moment.
What we have to do as a nation which is interested in building a sound and progressive economy to rub shoulders with other advanced nations in the world, is for us to unite and push party affiliations to the background and collectively pool ideas to build this country after all, this is the only country we have and nowhere else to go.
SUFFERING GHANAIANS NEED TO BE SPARED
The people are, indeed, suffering in the midst of economic difficulties and other challenges. The cost of living is unbearable, prices of goods and services continue to escalate daily, inflation is terribly high, the cedi which appreciated against the United States of America (USA) dollar during the Christmas period is beginning to depreciate, fuel prices, although reduced a little is not the best, insurance premiums and other road worthy taxes are astronomically high.
In the midst of all these economic challenges, the government cannot continue to burden the citizens with policies that are inimical to their progress. That cannot be tolerated whatsoever in any civilised country such as Ghana.
The government should find alternatives to address the present economic challenges and stop these unnecessary ad hoc and indirect measures to mitigate the numerous economic problems.
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By Charles Neequaye
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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