In his final remarks to Parliament on the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme, the Finance Minister stated that there was no coercion on any bondholder to sign up for the programme.
He stated that the programme was entirely voluntary and that the President had specifically directed him to do so.
He admitted that the government failed to properly communicate the DDEP, which contributed to the challenges and opposition that characterised the programme.
He explained in clear terms that the reason why the debt treatment was voluntary was that the government did not want to take anybody’s money from them.
He continued that “as I have indicated earlier, the domestic debt exchange programme was to alleviate the debt burden while minimising its impact on investors and the financial sector. Participation in the programme has always been “Voluntary”. The details of the domestic debt exchange are outlined in the Exchange Memorandum, and the subsequent amendments have been publicly available”.
The Exchange covers all locally issued government bonds and notes, as well as ESLA Plc and Daakye Plc bonds. Treasury bills and pension funds were excluded from the exchange based on the findings of the public debt audit.
A total of 97,749,624,691 eligible bonds were tendered, with 82,994,510,128 being successfully tendered.
This accounted for approximately 85% of outstanding eligible amounts, exceeding the 80% target stated in the Memorandum of Exchange.
