Mr Felix Kwakye Ofosu, Presidential Spokesman and Minister of State in-charge of Government Communications, speaking to the Presidential Press Corps at the seat of Government on Wednesday, said on the basis of available facts and evidence, the claim by members of the previous NPP administration, that the Mahama Administration was able to honor the debt obligations because of buffers they built was completely untrue.
He said President Mahama had in a directive to the Ministry of Finance ordered that step be taken to settle maturing coupons of Ghanaian bondholders who suffered drastic haircuts and under the domestic debts exchange programme.
He said following a directive from President Mahama, the finance minister on Monday, 17th February, released an amount of GH¢ 6 billion to these bondholders.
He said subsequent to the announcement that the second batch had been reactivated, the Government had had some rebuttals from the NPP, whose officials had claimed that the Government had been able to do that only because the previous NPP administration left some buffers and that it was not because of any specific intervention from President Mahama.
“I wish to place on record that this narrative is untrue. For officials of the former government to be able to say that these payments and honouring of these obligations have been the outcome of the work that they did, they need to point specifically where those buffers were located,” Mr Ofosu said.
“Because, in order to be able to pay them, you need to find it and lodge a summary.
That is what we call a buffer, Pending Payment Act.”
He noted that what they called the sinking fund, for short, was known as the Debt Service Reserve Account; saying “that is where money is kept pending the payment of bondholders and other creditors”.
He said the Debt Service Reserve Account had a cedi component and a dollar component; “in other words, there are two accounts; one denominated in cedis and the other denominated in dollars”.
“So, because it is an account, it is possible to obtain a statement of account which shows you transactions over a certain period.”
Mr Ofosu said if the NPP officials were saying that the Government was able to pay these monies because they left money in the Central Bank, it should reflect when one takes a cursory look at the statement of account.
“I have the statement of account. It is a continuous document, which shows all transactions, which had occurred in the account over a certain period,” he said.
“Now, if you look at the dollar denominated Debt Service Reserve Account, the records will show that the last time under the NPP, when there was a movement in the account, was 22nd October, 2024.”
Adding that that was the last time that any money came in or left that account before the NPP left office.
He said if one checks the balance in the account as of 24th October 22nd October 2024, it was $64,387.
“We are talking about payments within the range of GH¢ 6 billion. And you and I know that $64,387 cannot amount to GH¢6 billion,” he said.
“I mean, if you did a rough conversion using an exchange rate of GH¢ 15.00, I am sure you will get something in the range of about GH¢ 800,000 or a little over a million Ghana cedis, if my mathematics is right.”
Mr Ofosu said: “On 31st January 2055, and everybody knows that on 31st January, it was the NDC Government that was in power, not so? An amount of $96,915,182.00 was lodged in the account by the Finance Minister.”
“And it is clear where that money came from. It did not come from anything that the NPP had left in that account.”
Mr Ofosu reiterated that the last time that there was any movement in the Debt Service Reserve Account, which was an account right under the NPP, was 22nd October 2024; and that the balance on that day in the account was $64,387.00
He said the next time there was a movement was 31st January 2025, and a transfer of $96,915,182.00 was made to the account to make sure that we can meet the obligation that arose on 18th February 2055; stating that that was the payment of maturity coupons to bondholders.
He said if one looks at the cedi denominated Debt Service Reserve Account, one would found also that when the NDC took over on 7th January, 2025, the last time that anything happened in that account, before the NPP left office, was 2nd January, 2025.
Mr Ofosu said the amount of money in the account on that date, 2nd January 2025, was GH¢ 155,463,435.00
“Bear in mind that we are talking about payments in excess of GH¢ 6 billion.
In addition to that, another GH¢ 9 billion is currently sitting in the fund as we speak to pay for maturing coupons in July and August,” he said.
“If you put this together, that is GH¢ 15 billion. Yet the balance when the NPP was leaving was GH¢155 million. So how could they say that they were the ones who built the buffer? What kind of buffer is this? If you have obligations amounting to GH¢15 billion? Is the buffer you need for that GH¢155 million?”
He said if one checks the statement of account, one will see movements of monies into the account starting from somewhere around 23rd January 2025, by this Government.
“And that is the reason why we were able to honour the obligation that arose from the domestic debt exchange group,” he said.
“As I speak to you, as of yesterday, 17th February 2025, their balance in the account was $9,217,537,727.67, and this balance is there as a buffer against their service obligations in July and August.”
He said it was clear because of available facts and evidence, that a claim by members of the NPP administration, which just went out of power, that the Government was able to honor these obligations because of buffers they built was false.
GNA
