The Ghana Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF) has reaffirmed confidence in the leadership of its lead convener, Mr. Senyo Hosi to recoup their investments.
Other conveners of the Forum have therefore pledged to continue to work assiduously to advocate and effectively represent the interests of individual bondholders’ collective investment schemes.
The pledge followed a letter submitted to the Finance Minister by Individual Bond Holders Association of Ghana (IBHAG) in which it recused itself from deliberations of the Technical Committee set up to discuss the settlement of outstanding and future principal and coupon payments due to individual bondholders.
IBHAG led by lawyer Martin Kpebu had accused Mr. Senyo Hosi of virtually being ‘in bed’ with government against the interest of the individual bondholders.
According to IBHAG, the IBF departed completely from the past collective position of individual bondholders.
Giving reasons for recusing itself, IBHAG claimed that private meetings between Mr. Senyo Hosi of the IBF and the Ministry of Finance are not solutions to the concerns of Individual Bondholders whose coupon and principal payments have been in arrears or over two months.
However, a statement from the IBF observed that attempts to impugn the integrity of Senyo Hosi and accusing him of being “an appendage of the Ministry of Finance and doing its bidding is unfortunate, inaccurate, unfair, and dishonest”.
“The IBF has maintained working relations with IBHAG since both groups were established following the inclusion of individual bondholders and collective investment schemes in the GoG’s Domestic Debt Exchange programme.
“Both parties have always been independent but have worked together occasionally for the common good of its members, knowing that any positive outcomes of our advocacy will benefit every individual bondholder whether members of IBF, IBHAG or neither”, the statement signed by Conveners David Tetteh and Thelma Tawiah pointed out.
The group stressed that the ideas and proposals tabled by Mr. Hosi at the meetings with the Finance Ministry have been concepts prior discussed and approved by the relevant committees of the IBF and the proposals also prior discussed with the leadership of the IBHAG.
“We find the false representations of IBHAG an affront to the collective effort to ensure that the GoG honours its commitment to individual bondholders whose coupon and principal payments have not been honoured since they became due”, the statement reiterated.
It urged all bondholders’ groups to focus on the interest of their members.
“All the energy and collective will that we can muster at this time, should be directed towards getting the MoF to honour its commitment to our innocent members who have done no wrong by investing in Government Bonds.
“The last thing we need as individual bondholders is the self- destruction of our collective efforts through name-calling, mistrust, and unfounded allegations.
“The IBF with its over 340,000 members has no objection to IBHAG recusing itself from the Technical Committee.
“Our primary objective is to continue the engagements with the MoF to secure full and final closure to the issue of coupon and maturity payments for individual bondholders and collective investment schemes that chose the option to self-exempt under the DDEP.
“We expect that the Technical Committee will submit its report by Wednesday 26th April 2023 after which we will hold the Government to account on all agreed deliverables”, the statement concluded.
