According to the Minority in Parliament, a legal investigation into the debt swap scheme is imminent.
According to Article 181 (5) of the 1992 Constitution, the Minister needed approval from Parliament before announcing any haircut on all government bonds, loans, and instruments because those bonds were approved by Parliament, Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu explained in an interview with Evans Mensah on Top Story on Monday.
All foreign business or economic transactions to which the government is a party must be presented before Parliament for approval before they can take effect, according to Article 181(5) of the 1992 Constitution.
According to him, the Minister could have violated Article 181(5) of the Constitution.
"We are even starting to raise this issue to a formal constitutional issue of whether or not the Minister of Finance may reverse what the sovereign Parliament of Ghana has done in accordance with Article 181(5) of the constitution on his or her own, suo moto.
"All of those loans, bonds, and other financial instruments, including domestic bond debt, have contracts whose terms and conditions were authorised by Parliament. How can the Finance Minister give himself the authority to do this even without informing or receiving prior consent from the Parliament? Iddrisu Haruna questioned.
The Tamale South MP claims that because Ken Ofori-Atta first declared that individual bonds would not be included in the debt swap, he has also misled Ghanaians.
"When he presented his 2023 Budget to the House of Representatives, he was extremely terse about the debt swap. Even providing Parliament with the exchange's specifics and conditions was out of the question for him.
"He misled and duped the Ghanaian people into believing there wouldn't be a haircut and that individual bonds wouldn't be impacted. He has returned to incorporate them now.
The deadline for registering for the debt swap scheme has been extended by the government to January 31. The deadline has now been extended a third time.
However, the Minority stated that the extension will amount to nothing and demanded that the programme be suspended immediately during a news conference on Monday.
"We, the Minority Group of the NDC, demand that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo immediately halt the present debt swap scheme. It is already failing," said Haruna Iddrisu.
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