BoG, COCOBOD agree to roll over matured cocobonds
The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) and officials of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) have reached an agreement to exempt individual cocoa bondholders from government’s Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
The two institutions, COCOBOD and BoG, reached the agreement at a meeting on Friday, January 20, 2023.
The meeting was also attended by managing directors of banks who hold cocoa bonds for individual cocoa bondholders.
The move was to allay fears that holders of individual cocobonds will be affected by the government’s debt exchange programme.
There were earlier media reports that the government had rolled over cocoa bills maturing on Thursday, January 19 without the consent of investors.
Reports indicate that monies were actually paid on Thursday only to be reversed on Friday, January 20th, 2023.
“It is cocoa bill and matured yesterday [Thursday]. When it matured, the funds were deposited into the account and I decided to go to the bank today [Friday], when I went there today, the money had been taken out of the account,” said one of the affected investors.
According to him, when he queried about the withdrawal, he was informed that “it is a directive that has come for all the funds to be automatically rolled over for the next 6 months.”
The affected investor expressed shock at the development since the money was rolled over without his consent.
But sources at the meeting say it was made clear that COCOBOD holds enough liquidity to settle all individual bondholders.
According to the sources, the banks were shown figures indicating that COCOBOD is well on course to meet and possibly surpass the production target for the year: an estimated 850,000 tonnes of cocoa.
The government has this year paid interest on two different bonds that matured on 3 January and 16 January, and the state is yet to default on its short-term instruments.
