This extension becomes the third one since the government announced the programme late last year.
In a post by the Ministry of Finance on social media, it said the extension is to allow for further consultations of the programme.
“Building consensus is key to a successful economic recovery for Ghana. Pending further stakeholder engagement with institutional and individual investors, recently invited to join the debt exchange programme, government is extending the expiration of the DDE to Jan 31, 2023”, the Ministry said.
In an interview in Accra, the Majority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu said the legislature was not consulted properly on the programme.
Speaking to Accra based Citi FM, the Suame Member of Parliament said the government has to do a proper consultation of the programme.
“There were meetings before the budget came to be consummated and later on presented by the Finance Minister. So we had broad discussions, but the details were not known to us at the time, but some consultations went on as to where exactly we were as a nation. But I am not too sure that this matter came up for discussion maybe the broad strokes were mentioned but not the details,” Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu told host Bernard Avle.
The Majority had earlier warned that if the government enforces the debt exchange programme as it is now, it will wipe the middle class in Ghana.
Speaking with a group of individual bondholders led by convener, Senyo Hosi and private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu after a petition to exclude individual bondholders from the debt exchange was presented to him on Friday, the Suame MP called on the Finance Minister to properly engage with major stakeholders.
“What we [are] talking about is that many of these bondholders also belong to the middle class and that’s where the major worry is. If we are wiping away the middle class, that could be dangerous, so we need to have some further dialogue on this."
The government’s deadline for bondholders to sign onto the domestic debt exchange programme expires today, Monday, January 16, 2023.