Banks under pressure to force customers to accept DDEP – Senyo Hosi

The Convener of the Individual Bondholders Forum, Senyo Hosi, has alleged that some banks are under pressure to coerce their customers to accept the Domestic Debt Exchange programme (DDEP) as the deadline approaches.

Mr Hosi described the move as illegal and immoral adding that forcing customers of banks to accept the programme could spell doom for the country in future.

“Unfortunately on the market, we see some conducts that are unethical and also illegal. We see pressure coming from different quarters compelling banks to try and force customers to try and tender or accept the DDE, that is illegal, that is unethical and immoral,” Mr Hosi said on Tuesday on Eyewitness News.

He added that “the risk of that is that tomorrow the same customer will come and say he accepted that under duress. Who is really going to take responsibility for that?”

Tuesday, February 7, 2023, is the final day for bondholders to sign up for the domestic debt exchange programme.

The government is not likely to extend the deadline for subscribing to the programme which has been postponed three times already.

Mr Hosi also added that the government has clearly demonstrated that it is not ready to make sacrifices and is only interested in using funds of ordinary hard-working citizens for the domestic debt exchange programme.

According to him, the failure of President Akufo-Addo to reduce his ministerial appointees in his latest reshuffle exposes the government’s unwillingness to cut down costs.

Meanwhile, an Individual Bondholder has disclosed that none of their recommendations made to the government to raise more revenue without involving the funds of individual bondholders in the domestic debt exchange programme has been considered in the final proposals.

“Up until now, we have essentially seen only unilateral proposals. None of the conversations that were entered into by the technical committee between the government and the individual bondholders has reflected. All the proposals that we made that we talked about almost 83 billion cedis, none has been discussed by the government.”