The Executive Director of the Institute for Energy Policies and Research has refuted the explanation given by some government functionaries that principals of bondholders will not be affected by a debt restructuring exercise the government might undertake, which means that there will be no "haircut on government bonds". According to Kojo Nsafoah Poku, the government renegotiating the interest of bonds is also a haircut since the investors will not get yields originally agreed on. "If you leave the person's principal and renegotiate his interest, you're still giving him a haircut. If you elongate his tenure and you don't give the interest over that same tenure, you are giving him a haircut," he explained in a TV3 interview monitored by GhanaWeb on November 11, 2022. Kwadwo Poku, who has indicated his intention to contest the flagebearship race of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), said that the announcement by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that there would be no "haircut on Government bonds" as part of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) negotiations does no good. "The point is this, if you are looking at options to get yourself to breathe, it really ties the hands of the negotiators because it takes some of the options available to them off the table. For me, my thoughts could have been that in the president's address, he would have basically stayed out of that statement and let the negotiators negotiate," he said. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo refuted suggestions that his government would buy off government bonds at rates lower than their expected returns – "haircut on Government bonds". Addressing the nation on measures being taken by the government to rescue the economy, Akufo-Addo said: "I also want to assure all Ghanaians that no individual or institutional investor, including pension funds, in government treasury bills or instruments will lose their money, as a result of our ongoing IMF negotiations. "There will be no "haircuts", so I urge all of you to ignore the false rumours, just as, in the banking sector clean-up, government ensured that the 4.6 million depositors affected by the exercise did not lose their deposits." He cautioned, "those who make it a habit of publishing falsehoods, which result in panic in the system, I say to them that the relevant state agencies will act against such persons". But the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has come out to explain Akufo-Addo's assurances that there will be no haircut covers on principals. "My understanding is that no principals will be touched. No principals will have a haircut. The debt sustainability strategy is yet to be announced in full. "When they are done with the rest of the strategy, and they come out and do a full announcement, we will have clarity on the form that the debt restructuring will take," the information minister said. Watch the interview below (from 18:30): You can also watch this episode of People & Places on GhanaWeb TV: IB/SEA