Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the Vice Presidential Candidate for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has attributed the preservation of Ghana’s economy to the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
The government introduced the DDEP in December 2022 as part of its strategy to tackle severe economic challenges and ensure long-term debt sustainability.
This initiative was initiated to address the country’s unsustainable debt levels, rising inflation, currency depreciation, and high borrowing costs, which the government linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic disruptions, including the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
In an interview with Peace FM on Wednesday, October 16, Dr. Prempeh, often referred to as NAPO, stated that without the DDEP, Ghana would have struggled to overcome its economic challenges or secure vital support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
He stressed that the DDEP has been instrumental in the country’s recovery, noting that the IMF has commended Ghana for the rapid and effective nature of its economic rebound.
“If not for DDEP, our revived economy would have collapsed,” He told host Kwami Sefa-Kayi.
“If they [bondholders] didn’t accept and exchange their bonds, we wouldn’t be able to go through the IMF restructuring. The foreign bondholders would not also have given us the discounts and the write-offs.
“They saw that the Ghanaian [economy] had suffered, so they felt compelled to support Ghana’s economy.
I want to say again that if not for the DDEP bondholders who sacrificed and exchanged their bonds, we would have been in a worse situation in this country. IMF wouldn’t have been praising us for the rate of our recovery.
“So, the NPP government must appreciate the DDEP bondholders for their sacrifice for Ghana,” he stated.
