One law of wealth creation is believed to be investment. Many financial experts advice that to attain financial stability, an individual must invest to the point where their investment works for them.

Everyone dreams of attaining financial stability, so most people work hard then invest their monies in either treasury bills, bonds among others.

For some individuals, the key to this financial stability is to begin their investment journey as soon as they get a good job, so that at least, they could live off the profits from the investment, which makes life relatively easier.

After all, what can be better than earning a salary and also getting extra money from interest on your investment to help reduce the burden which would have been worse if you live on a salary only.

This has always been the case for most investors until the financial sector clean-up exercise that started in 2017 and ended in 2020, during which eight banks, 23 savings and loans companies and more than 400 specialised deposit-taking institutions (SDIs) were collapsed.

Obviously, the clean-up caused many people to lose their monies, which gave the impression that the safest place for investment is government institutions.

Some of these individuals, therefore decided to buy bonds directly from government since they can always be assured of their monies whenever they need it.

Two years down the lane, the very investment which was touted to be the safest with no or little risk has turned out to be the riskiest.

Government has informed bondholders that they will no longer get the interest on their investment. They also risk losing a chunk of it through what has been described as ‘haircut’.

This follows the inclusion of individual bondholders in the domestic debt exchange programme and an announcement of extension of the expiration date of the Domestic Debt Exchange programme to January 16, 2023.

Individual investors were initially not part of the domestic debt restructuring, but it appears the exemption of pension funds from the programme has triggered that.

A statement from the Finance Ministry confirmed this.

“Expanding the type of investors that can participate in the Exchange to now include Individual Investors”, it pointed out.

Currently, some bondholders are feeling as though their worlds are crashing.

So many thoughts are running through their minds; from how they are going to feed to how they will pay their bills among others.

Some of them shared their experiences on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Wednesday, January 11, 2023.

Narrating his situation, Larry Jiagge, 65 years old, said he had planned all his life towards retirement and therefore decided to start investing early only to lose it to the financial sector clean up.

“I must indicate that during the financial sector restructuring I lost money and during the period that was going on I had serious health problems because I could not sleep,” he said.

Also, he mentioned that he is on a WhatsApp platform where there are individuals with similar problems as his. They all could not sleep thus “the platform was active till this morning and you could feel the pain of people. What crime have we committed by keeping faith in our system or our country,” he quizzed.

Kwesi [not his real name] said he had collected his social security entitlement, sold some of his property to buy a bond which he was supposed to use to foot his children’s school fees.

“The money I got from my SSNIT contribution, I was having some property – piece of land I sold it, put the money together so that I can make deposit for my bond and take care of my children so my daughter’s education is dependent on the bonds,” he said.

A mother, Aunty Akos almost in tears, pleaded with the government to pay her money because her entire family depends on the returns on the bond and asked how she would survive.

Her husband, who is the bondholder, she said has lost his sleep and no longer talks, “he has sleepless nights, he barely sleeps at night, he barely talks even if you want to have a discussion with him, he does not respond. I am young, I do not want to lose my husband.”

Meanwhile, the Ghana Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF), a group of voluntary bondholders, has urged individual bondholders to reject and refrain from complying with the mandatory deadline imposed under the Domestic Debt Exchange (DDE) programme by the government.

It rather wants them to join the efforts of the IBF.

In a statement signed by Senyo Hosi, the immediate past Chief Executive of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distribution Companies, it also urged indirect bondholders (investors in mutual funds, cash trusts, balance funds) to inform their fund managers not to accept the DDE.