The Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, will appear before Parliament today, Thursday, February 16, 2023, to answer questions from the House on the Debt Restructuring Programme.
Ofori-Atta’s appearance in Parliament comes after Speaker Alban Bagbin directed the Business Committee of the House to drag Ofori-Atta to the House to answer questions on the programme.
He is expected to give a policy brief on the programme.
The Domestic Debt Exchange Programme has received backlash from groups, including banks, pensioners and individual bondholders.
Former Chief, Justice Sophia Akuffo, who joined pensioners to picket at the Finance Ministry, expressed displeasure in the failure of the Minister of Finance to respond to a letter requesting for exemption of pensioners from the domestic debt exchange programme.
According to the former chief justice, Ken Ofori-Atta has responded to similar letters submitted by other groups.
Sophia Akuffo said this while speaking with pressmen after another picket at the Finance Ministry on February 14, 2023.
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She argued that the fact that the concerns of the pensioners have not been addressed is worrying.
Sophia Akuffo says it is becoming worrying that their concerns have not been addressed by the Minister.
“A simple letter that was written by the association to the Minister of Finance exempts us from your programme. That is the gist, I always like to distill things to their lowest common denominator. Exempt us, we are pensioners. Up till now, I have seen a copy of the letter; it is dated January 7.
“Up till now, there has not been a note of acknowledgement, and just a few days similar letters that were written to the Minister have been responded to whereby he has categorically exempted other groups. Why? When I cannot fathom the reasons for something being done in a particular way especially when it has been done for others but it is not being done for others, I started getting suspicious; I have grown to be an age where I have seen it all,” she added.
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com | Vivian Adu