The Member of Parliament for Dormaa East, Paul Apraku Twum Barimah has appealed to the various unions within organised labour to support the government of President Akufo-Addo to revive the economy.
According to him, government has initiated and implementing several strategic programmes like the debt exchange programme in a bid to revive the financial strength of the state and believes with the assistance of organised labour, implementation will be successful.
Speaking in an interview with the media, Mr. Twum Barimah stated that the policies outlined by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, as part of the debt restructuring programme are the best for the state and investors to keep their investments safe.
He indicated that government is only interested in protecting investors funds and stabilising the country’s economy .
The Domestic Exchange Programme was launched this week as part of measures to restructure and bring Ghana’s debt portfolio to sustainable levels.
The programme, which commences from 2023 to 2037, would see the government exchange existing domestic bonds for a set of four new ones maturing in 2027, 2029, 2032 and 2037.
As part of the exchange, the annual coupon on all of the coupons would be set at zero percent in 2023, five percent in 2024 and 10 percent in 2025 until maturity.
Holders of domestic instruments are being requested to voluntarily exchange approximately ¢137 billion of the domestic notes and bonds for a package of new bonds to be issued.
Paul Twum Barimah described these measures as the path towards resetting the country’s economy to a more stable one capable of addressing the development challenges of the country.
He said government is determined to implement wide-ranging structural and fiscal reforms to restore fiscal and debt sustainability and support growth.
The objective of the debt exchange programme is to alleviate the debt burden of the country in a most transparent, efficient, and expedited manner and government has been working hard to minimise the impact of the domestic debt exchange on investors holding government bonds.
He therefore appealed to organised labour to support the government in the implementation process to help bring the economy back to growth stage.