“Speaker of Parliament urges Finance Minister to spare pensioners from proposed reforms.

Speaker of Parliament urges Finance Minister to spare pensioners from proposed reforms

Alban Bagbin, the Speaker of Ghana’s Parliament, has urged the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, to refrain from using the funds of pensioners in the country to resolve the current economic crisis. During a parliamentary session on February 16, Bagbin stated that Parliament would reject any attempt to include the monies contributed by retirees in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP), and instead advised the government to find alternative solutions to the problem.

The Finance Minister had earlier announced that retirees who did not successfully exchange their old bonds for new ones as part of the DDEP would not be required to participate in the program. However, Bagbin’s statement made it clear that he was not in favor of any proposal that would

put the pension funds of elderly citizens at risk

Finance Minister reassures Parliament on pensioners’ exemption from Debt Exchange Program

During his presentation to Parliament on the status of the Domestic Debt Exchange Program, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta assured the members that the pensioners’ interests were being protected. Ofori-Atta stated that he had formally communicated to pensioner bondholders who did not sign onto the program about their exemption from the process, in order to keep them informed.

The Finance Minister went on to emphasize the government’s commitment to protecting the health and dignity of senior citizens and pensioners, saying that the recent picketing outside the Ministry of Finance by some of the retirees had caused him a great deal of distress. Ofori-Atta’s comments sought to allay concerns raised by some members of Parliament over the potential impact of the Debt Exchange Program on the pensioners’ funds

“As I have already mentioned in my press release on the 14th of February 2023, the government will honor their coupon payments and maturing principal, just like it does with all other government bonds, in keeping with the government’s fiscal commitments,”

To help stabilize the country’s faltering economy, Ghana has approached the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with a request for a bailout of three billion dollars.

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One of the prerequisites that must be met before the board of the Bretton Woods institution may assess Ghana’s request is the completion of the local debt restructuring scheme.

In December, Ghana and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came to an agreement on a staff level, which paved the way for the rescue of $3 billion.