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Top officials of 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) and to roll over cocobonds for another 180 days.

The two institutions, COCOBOD and BoG, reached the agreement at a meeting on Friday (20 January 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 today (20 January) without the consent of investors.

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.