Bright Simons, the vice president of IMANI Africa, claimed that the government was simply defaulting on its financial obligations by engaging in the debt restructuring plan proposed by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta.

Simons said that the Ghanaian government would not pay its debtors for the first time in almost 40 years in a series of tweets published on Sunday, December 12, 2022.

The government last fell behind on its bills in 1972, the vice president of IMANI noted.

"The act is complete. Unanimously, Ghana declared a default initially since 1982.

However, it is the first time since the 1972 commercial loan default in several like-for-like aspects.

“The question on everyone's mind is: would things be smooth or rough with the other steps ahead?” parts of the series of tweets read.

The Minister of Finance announced a number of measures under government's Domestic Debt Exchange (DDE) programme late Sunday.

He stated in a 4-minute address that the announcement was in line with government's Debt Sustainability Analysis as contained in the 2023 budget he presented to Parliament on November 24.

The Minister laid out among others the exchange of existing domestic bonds with four new ones as well as their maturity dates and terms of coupon payments.

He also addressed the overarching goal of the government relative to its engagements with the International Monetary Fund as well as measures to minimize impact of domestic bond exchange on different stakeholders.

"The Government of Ghana has been working hard to minimize the impact of the domestic debt exchange on investors holding government bonds, particularly small investors, individuals, and other vulnerable groups," he said before outlining three main measures:

• Treasury Bills are completely exempted and all holders will be paid the full value of their investments on maturity.

• There will be NO haircut on the principal of bonds.

• Individual holders of bonds will not be affected.