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Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has told Parliament that he has met the pensioners who have been picketing to protest their inclusion in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) three times.
He said that he had communicated the conditions of the new bonds to them.
Briefing Parliament on Thursday, February 16, he said “government is committed to the wellbeing of our senior citizens and pensioners. The government will honour their coupon payments and maturing principles.”
He added “I have met with them on three occasions where I explained the terms of the new bonds. I subsequently wrote to their convener to let him know that all pensioners who did not participate in the bond offerings are exempt.”
Earlier, Former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo who was part of the picketing pensioners said she was getting suspicious when Mr Ofori-Atta listened to the concerns of others and responded to their letters regarding the domestic debt exchange programme but did not respond to pensioners who had written to him to exclude them from the programme.
Ms Sophia Akuffo insisted that the Finance Minister must exempt pensioners from the programme.
“A simple letter that was written by the association to the Minister of Finance that exempt us from your programme. That is the gist, I always like to distil things to their lowest common denominator, exempt us, we are pensioners. Up till now, I have seen a copy of the letter, it has been dated 7th January.
“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 start getting suspicious, I have grown to the age where I have seen it all,” Speaking to journalists in Accra after joining pensioners again to picket at the Ministry of Finance to protest their inclusion in the programme, on Tuesday, February 14.
NKONKONSA.com
