Second DDEP: ‘This is crazy’ – Joe Jackson

The Chief Operations Officer at Dalex Finance, Joe Jackson, has noted that the two new debt exchange programmes being undertaken by the government will be eroding the gains made from the initial domestic debt exchange undertaken by the government.

According to him, it is “crazy” that a country like Ghana will be undertaking such.

“Is this not wiping away everything we have achieved in the debt exchange programme? Everything we are trying to achieve with the dollar-denominated bonds, everything we are trying to achieve with the cocoa bond exchange programs, this is crazy. In a country where it is clear that the government agenda is to reduce its coupon rates on its debt service to as low as 12, 13 percent,” he was quoted by 3news.com.

The government in anticipation of the second tranche in November has launched another two new debt restructuring programmes seeking to restructure up to GH¢809 million worth of bonds.

Ghana's domestic debt exchange programme as it is called is simply the government’s call for holders of bonds to exchange their existing bonds for new bonds at later dates.

This is because the government is unable to fulfill the payments of both principals and interest rates for bonds that have matured or will mature this year.

Therefore, the government has extended the maturity dates and spread out the interest rates for the new bonds to grant them some breathing space in order to honor the payments.

The two new “haircuts” are for holders of dollar bonds and holders of COCOBOD’s short-term securities i.e., cocoa bills.

SSD/NOQ