A leading member of the Individual Bondholders Association of Ghana (IBHAG), Dr Joel Akwetey, has indicated that the group will continue to participate in the deliberations of the technical committee set up by the Finance Ministry to address the concerns of Ghanaian bondholders in the domestic debt exchange programme.
This is a reversal of IBHAG’s earlier position to withdraw from the technical committee, which was announced in a news release a couple of weeks ago. Last week, without officially announcing the suspension of the boycott, IBHAG sent representatives to a meeting of the technical committee, raising questions about the group’s intention.
The meeting was also attending by representatives of the Individual Bondholders Forum, whose convener, Senyo Hosi was singled out for attack in the IBHAG statement, which accused Mr. Hosi of being a sellout and becoming an “appendage of the Ministry of Finance, doing its bidding.”
Speaking to norvanreports on Tuesday, May 2, 2023, Mr Akwetey said that given the differences in approaches of the two bondholder groupings in advocating for the interest of their respective members, disagreements are bound to boil over but they shouldn’t be allowed to stop the achievement of the goals of getting a fair deal for bondholders in the DDEP.
“We are at the moment trying to settle our differences with the IBF,” Mr. Aketwey said. “Things like these are likely to happen given the different approaches used by both bodies towards a common goal. But both the IBF and IBHAG are focused on deliberations with MoF to resolve overdue coupons and principals payments.”
According to Mr Akwetey however, IBHAG’s decision to rescind its decision to boycott meetings of the Technical Committee was due to a consensus among members of IBHAG for its leadership to continue to attend meetings of the Technical Committee and continue advocacy for the payments of outstanding coupons and principals.
The IBHAG and IBF are both organizations that represent individual bondholders in Ghana. While there have been suggestions for the two organizations to merge, they have maintained their separate identities due to their divergent approaches to tackling the issue of locked-up funds. Despite this, both organizations share the common goal of advocating for the interests of individual bondholders