The Editor-in-Chief of the New
Crusading Guide newspaper says Transport Minister, Fifi Kwetey, was
being deceptive when he said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) wasted a $750 million
loan facility in 2007.Backing his challenge of Mr. Kwetey’s claims with
documents, Abdul Malik Kwaku Baako Jnr said it was baffling how the Minister
would make such a claim when there is evidence of infrastructural projects that
the loan facility financed.
Some of the infrastructural projects that
were financed with the loan facility were praised by the late President, John
Evans Atta Mills, he revealed on Joy FM/Multi TV news analysis programme,
Newsfile, Saturday.
At a ‘Setting the Records Straight’
forum last Thursday, Fifi Kwetey said NPP has no reliable knowledge about debt
servicing, citing how the opposition party wasted the $750 million Eurobond
proceed when the party was in power.
“For us in the NDC, foreign
loans are meant for investment. Most likely, because the NPP was so wasteful
with foreign loans, the party wrongly assumes the NDC has the same defect. No!
We in the NDC have a great track record of using foreign debts to invest in
solid investments,” Mr Kwetey had said.
However, rebutting Mr
Kwetey’s remarks on Newsfile Saturday, the Mr Baako produced a
World Bank document prepared jointly between Government of Ghana and the World
Bank that dealt with the facility.
Reading copiously from the said
document, he said, “It says ‘non-concessionary borrowing in 2007 was mostly
used to raise energy capacity and that of 2008 is being accessed. Out of the
$750 million borrowed in 2007 in the form of Eurobonds $595 million have been
disbursed by January 2009.
‘The proceeds were allocated
primarily to support public investments in the energy sector according to the
following distribution:
286 million dollars for investments by
the Volta River Authority (VRA)
134 million dollars for
investment by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG)
54 million
dollars for investment in the Bui Dam
31 million dollars for the
government’s equity investment in the West Africa Gas Pipeline,
and
90 million dollars for public investment in roads
infrastructure
‘The information provided by the Government of
Ghana confirms therefore that proceeds from the Eurobond were used for
productive investment, primarily in electricity generation and distribution, two
areas that have been identified in the 2007 programme as warranting additional
investment to sustained economic growth’, this from the Mills administration to
the World Bank.”
He also cited a memorandum presented to the Cabinet
of the late John Mills’ administration by then Minister for Finance and Economic
Planning, Dr Kwabena Duffuor to corroborate the contents of the document jointly
prepared by the World Bank and government.
“It can’t be a
waste,” he told show host, Samson Lardi Anyenini. |
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