Minority leader, Cassiel Ato Forson has accused the Majority in Parliament of ambush after the House approved a raft of new loan facilities on Tuesday, May 2.
According to him, the Majority thought this was the right time to bring the loan to the House for approval at a time when NDC members of Parliament are preparing for their primaries and are heavily campaigning in their various constituencies.
The Minority, he said, is vehemently opposed to the approval of the loan facilities and called on civil society organizations to help the opposition to hold the government accountable.
Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin recalled Parliament from recess to consider the loan facilities even though the Minority MPs are preparing for the party’s internal election.
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Speaking to the media after Parliament approved approximately US$750 million for the financing of various projects being pursued by the government; Dr. Ato Forson argued at a time the country is in dire distress it is very wrong for the government to still consider and to even have the courage to add the public debt.
He said, “They thought this is the best time to bring the loans and obviously they brought them and succeeded in passing them. We opposed that but we are calling on the people of Ghana to hold this government accountable.”
“The opposition, all this time, has been doing what we can with the numbers that were given to us by the electorates. But more often impressions are created as if it is only the opposition that should gold this government accountable.”
“They are comfortable with the numbers that they have in Parliament. They are more than us by one or two and oftentimes they use these numbers even though it is one to push their business,” he added.
According to the Minority leader, the Majority was successful in their agenda because they had the number, which is a simple majority.
He, however, stressed that the loans are too high and should not have been allowed to go through in the first place and urged the government to change the course and not sign the loan even though Parliament has approved it.
These include from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group US$60 million as a Third Additional Financing for the Ghana COVID-19 Emergency Preparedness and Response Project; US$150 million to finance the West Africa Foo System Resilience Programme Phase 2 under the Multi-Phas Programmatic Approach; US$150 million to finance the Primary Healthcare Investment Project; US$150 million to finance the public financial management for service delivery programme and US$200 million to finance the Ghana Digital Acceleration.
The others are €170,000,000.00 from the Development Bank Ghana (DBG) for the establishment of the Development Bank of Ghana (DBG); US$30,000,000.00 from the Export-Import Bank of Korea to finance the Medical Equipment Provision
Chairman of the Finance Committee, Kweku Kwarteng, who presented the Committee reports to the House indicated that in view of the enormous benefits to be derived from the various projects and their capacity to address press challenges and vulnerabilities in the sectors the projects are intended for, the Committee by majority decision recommended to the House to adopt the report and approve the loans.