Leadership of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) has joined contenders who are against the government’s debt exchange programme, and has issued a warning to the government to stay away from their pension funds.

National Secretary of the University Teachers Association of Ghana, Dr. Asare Asante-Annor in a media engagement explained that “ our money should not be touched, pensions of our members and Ghanaians should not be affected because these are monies that they have legitimately contributed for their entire working lives”.

Any attempt by the government to touch the pension fund, according to UTAG, would be met with strong opposition from the organization's members.

The government launched the Debt Exchange Programme on Monday, December 5, 2022, as part of measures to reduce the country’s debt burden.

During the launch, the finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta noted that debt sustainability analysis conducted so far shows indisputably that Ghana's public debt was unsustainable, hence the need to take some structural and fiscal reforms.

Dr Annor also called on the government to share the burden of the restructuring programme by reducing its size and expenditure.

On his part, this is where the sharing of burdens begins.

“We also ask the government to go ahead with measures that will also control their expenditure. We have a lot of local resources that we believe we should make efficient use of. We have also talked about reducing the size of government significantly so that we know that we all share the burden,” the secretary noted.

A critical review of some government flagship programmes, according to Dr Annor, would also go a long way toward sustaining and restoring our capacity to service debt.

A number of groups, such as the Ghana Medical Association, the National Association of Graduate Teachers, and the Trade Union Congress, have already expressed their displeasure and voiced their rejection of the debt exchange programme.

They believe it would be injurious to the interests of contributors to pension schemes.

Ghana’s domestic debt exchange programme was launched on Monday to put the country’s debt on a sustainable path.

The government would exchange its current domestic bonds for a group of four new ones that would mature in 2027, 2029, 2032, and 2037 as part of the programme, which runs from 2023 to 2037.

The annual coupon on all of the coupons would be set to 0% in 2023, 5% in 2024, and 10% in 2025 until maturity as part of the exchange.

This comes at a time when Ghana is facing a tough economic crisis amid an increasingly difficult global economic environment and the shock from the unpopular Russia-Ukraine war.

As a result, the government has requested financial assistance from the IMF to help with fiscal and debt sustainability.

Source: The Independent Ghana|