Debt Exchange Programme Is A ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’ – Martin Kpebu

Private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu has described government’s debt exchange programme as a ‘weapon of mass destruction’.

Kpebu’s description comes in the wake of the adverse impact some critics and experts have predicted about the programme.

Speaking on Joy FM’s midday bulletin on Wednesday, the maverick lawyer reiterated his resistance to the proposed policy.

According to him, he and some other concerned citizens will continue to mount pressure on government to suspend the programme which they say will worsen the lives of individial bondholders.

“We’re still standing by the ‘no-no-no-no’. So we’re asking government to respectfully exempt individual bondholders from this programme.

As I’ve stated over and over, the programme, that’s the domestic debt exchange programme is proven to a weapon of mass destruction”, he stated.

Mr Kpebu continued, “It [debt exchange programme] is going to kill more citizens, it’s going to destroy more businesses. It’s going to destroy more schools and livelihoods and so on and so forth”.

In an earlier interview on Joy FM’s Newsnight, Martin Kpebu, who is the legal representative for the Individual Bondholders Association of Ghana, expressed displeasure at the delay by the Finance Ministry in calling for a stakeholder engagement.  

According to him, the way the government had kept them in the dark with regard to the date for their meeting is disappointing.

“We are pained by the very slow manner in which government is dealing with this matter, too slow,” he said.