Pensioners Bond Holders have been continuously protesting outside of the office of the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori Atta, and he doesn’t understand why the protests are still ongoing. He claims that daily picketing is unnecessary because he has already addressed the pensioners’ concerns.
The government said in a press release that the pensioners’ participation in the debt restructuring was entirely optional. But the angry pensioners insist that Minister must make it official and say that their bonds are not part of the debt restructuring.
Several notable people, such as the former chief justice of Ghana, Sophia Akuffo, participated in a protest of pensioners outside the Ministry of Finance in Accra.
While spilling out her frustration to journalists in Accra, she said, “These are all people who have worked, they have worked very hard, they could have left the country when others were going but they stayed, they worked for the nation.
Speaking to the protesting retirees outside the Finance Ministry on Wednesday, he said that many of them had chosen not to tender their bonds despite the release’s assurances that doing so was entirely optional. Therefore, the Minister of Finance called for a crucial meeting with the Pensioners to determine the next steps.
Mr. Ofori-Atta, on the other hand, says that those demands have been met. “I mean, I issued a press release a couple of days ago and I thought I have made it an equivocally clear that all government bonds will be honoured and that therefore whether you are voluntary or not, whether you have tendered or not it will be respected”.
“So I really want to understand why we are still here so that if there is anything more, I can say I can do that, but rarely if you look at the press statement it emphasis the fact that this was volunteering and about 15-16% of the pensioners are actually tendered but they choose to, the bulk of you did not but I have indicated that it was voluntary which means that we will honour those payment” he said.
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Source – Tru News Report
