Finance Professor at Andrews University in the USA, Williams Peprah has advised the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and government to first rebuild confidence in the country’s economy before urging Ghanaians abroad to invest in any form of diasporan bond.
The Governor of the central bank, Dr. Johnson Asiama during the just ended IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings in the USA, encouraged Ghanaians abroad to participate in diasporan bond issuance being contemplated by the government.
However, Professor Peprah cautioned that the recent Debt Exchange Programme undertaken by Ghana has made a lot of investors skeptical on prudent use of investor funds.
He pointed out for example that investors are still aware of the challenges of the debt exchange programme which resulted in maturity dates of bonds extended by 15 years, while many took a haircut.
“When we come back home our money should be safe. We want assurance that the government or whoever is in charge is not going to misapply the funds as we saw in the past. And also we don’t want anything like haircut coming up in the future. Diasporas have alternative wherever we are”, he said.
Prof. Peprah added that investors will always consider returns on their investments and will not just put their funds in Ghana because they are Ghanaians.
“The first one is a risk. What is the risk exposure of Ghana now? We know that our ratings in terms of our credibility is still within the speculative grade. What is the returns that will be paid to diasporans if we invest in long term and will that be stable enough?” he queried.
He stressed that the most important factor is trust; cautioning that government must work to improve confidence in the economy.
“The third one is do we trust our Ghanaian government and the economy? Is this something that we can really rely on to see if you want to invest in Ghana?”
