The immediate-past Chief Justice of Ghana, Sophia Akuffo, has responded to criticism from a leading member of the New Patriotic Party, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, over her participation in the pensioner bondholders picket at the Ministry of Finance on Friday, February 10, 2023.
According to Gabby, the former CJ erred in her move to join pensioner bondholders in their resolve to get the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, to exempt them from the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.
But Madame Sophia Akuffo, in her response, described Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko as a less important being to her and one who does not even hold any proper position in the governing New Patriotic Party.
“He [Gabby] cannot tell me what I need to do and what I do not need to do and it’s as simple as that… You know I don’t have time for things like that because people like Gabby are not important to me or to my life, he is a disturbance and that’s all I can say about it,” she told journalists when she joined pensioner bondholder to picket again at the Ministry of Finance on February 14, 2023.
Touching on the government’s stance that the DDEP remains voluntary for bondholders, the former Chief Justice insisted that pensioner bondholders will not sign unto the programme which has since concluded.
“With the way, things are going and from what I sense, there will be a creation of two categories of bondholders. Those who refused not to participate still want to stand by the existing bonds that they have with government.”
“My problem with the whole Debt Exchange Programme is the destruction that will come upon this nation which is being done and can last through many generations. It took a long time for Ghanaians to buy into any government securities because there was always the suspicion of the unknown and now that is being introduced in the form of the DDEP,” Sophia Akuffo stressed.
