Ghana’s former chief justice Sophia Akuffo on Friday (10 February) joined a picket line of pensioners who have been staging protests at the Finance Ministry, demanding that the government exempt them from the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
The government has announced an administrative window for bondholders to complete processes for tendering bonds so that they can sign up to the DDEP, adding that the deadline is 4pm today (Friday 10 February 2023).
It is the fifth time that members of the pensioner bondholders’ forum are picketing at the Ministry of Finance to demand a total exemption of their investments from the debt swap. The government has proposed a 15% coupon rate: the pensioners, however, are rejecting it.
The former chief justice brandished a placard in solidarity with other senior citizens.
“We use our bond yields to pay our rents, medical bills, electricity bills and water bills,” the placard she wielded said.
The former chief justice described as wicked and insensitive the decision by the Finance Ministry to include bonds of pensioners in the programme.
“A lot of us are from the generation where we were always encouraged to save and quite a number of people here today, when they retired, put their savings into government bonds. And now all of a sudden you eventually want to at gunpoint force them to agree with you that the yield on their investment should be as you dictate it. Why?” Akuffo demanded.
“It’s important that the elderly in this nation should be respected. I find this wicked and disrespectful and unlawful because you don’t solve your problem by sacrificing the aged,” she said.
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