Presidency Contests Claims that Past Govt Facilitated Payment of Obligations to Bondholders
The incumbent government has debunked as untrue, claims by officials of the past government that the recent payment of obligations to bondholders under the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) was facilitated by their administration.
On February 17, the government announced the payment of GH₵6.081 billion and GHS3.46 billion respectively in Payment-In-Cash (PIC) and Payment-In-Kind (PIK) to bondholders and payment into the Debt Service Recovery Cedi Account (Sinking Fund) an amount of GHS9.7 billion as a buffer for the 5th DDEP coupon that will fall in July and August 2025.
Former Minister for Finance, Mohammed Amin Adam in a Facebook post while reacting to this indicated that the buffer left by this government had made the payment by this government seamless.
However, addressing journalists on February 19, 2025, the Communications Director at the Office of the President, Felix Ofosu Kwakye fiercely contested it.
“I wish to place on record that this narrative is untrue. For officials of the former government to be able to say that these payments and honouring of these obligations have been the outcome of that they did, they have to point specifically where those buffers were located.”
Overview
Delving into the technicalities, he explained, “What we call the Sinking Fund is actually known as Debt Service Reserve Account. That is where money is kept pending the payments of bondholders and other creditors.
“This debt service Reserve account has a cedi component and dollar components. In other words, there are two accounts, one denominated in cedis and the other in dollars.”
Record
Making reference to the account statement from the two accounts, he relayed that the NPP left the dollar account with an amount of $64,387.
“The last time under the NPP when there was a movement in the account was on 22nd December 2024. The balance then was $64,387. We are talking about payments within the range of ¢6 billion and you and I know that $65,000 cannot amount to ¢ 6 billion.”
He stated that Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson on January 31, 2025, lodged an amount of $96,915,182 in the account.
For the Cedi account, the NPP government made its last movement on 2nd January, 2025, and left it with an amount of ¢155,463,435.
According to him, ¢9 billion was lodged into the account on the NDC government’s assumption of office on January 23.
“If you put it together, that is ¢ 15 billion, yet the balance when the NPP was leaving was ¢155 million so how can they say that they are the ones that built the buffer? What kind of buffer is this if you have obligations amounting to ¢ 15 billion.”
As of 17th February 2025, the balance in the account was ¢9,270,537,727.67 to pay for maturing coupon in July and August, he noted.
Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini
