Minority Raises Red Flag
The Minority in parliament has raised serious concerns over the real intent of the ruling National Democratic Congress(NDC) government to secure the $3 billion Chinese loan facility, which it says has so many lapses that could be a sure avenue for some government officials to enrich themselves.
At a press conference yesterday, the minority said the nation stood to lose about $500 million to some individual pockets, if those loopholes were not checked by parliament.
The minority has, therefore, called on the government to, as a matter of urgency, re-negotiate the terms of agreement with their Chinese counterparts because at the end of the day the Ghanaian taxpayer, who would be paying for this commercial loan, deserved real value for money.
Leading the minority in the press conference, the minority leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, said since the Master Facility Agreement (MFA) was signed for the loan in 2011 during the tenure of late President Atta Mills, the minority in parliament had raised a lot of red flags over some specific requirements and conditions in the loan agreement, which according to them if ignored would be inimical to the interest of Ghanaians.
According to him, the MFA guarantees a minimum of 60 per cent of all contracts under the loan, which would be awarded to the Chinese company and on top of it many of the projects are to be built, operated and transferred to Ghana stressing that the contractor in this case has become the investor and that the operator or the contractor will recoup his investment before transferring.
'We want to call on the government to re-negotiate this aspect of the agreement and make it that a maximum of 60 per cent of the contracts should go to Chinese companies while the remaining 40 per cent will be for Ghanaian companies since the minimum being pegged at 60 could even mean that blanket 100 per cent of the contracts could be awarded to Chinese companies,' he indicated
The minority explained that feasibility studies done on most of the projects to be undertaken under loan were done in a rush and that government officials could not give clear ceiling on the cost of the various projects, raising suspicion of possible perpetration of fraud and corruption in the management of these projects.
He said, for instance, that the agreement for the construction of coastal fishing harbours and landing sites would require between $150 and $250 leaving a room of $100 million, the Eastern Corridor Multi-Modal Transport Project cost pegged between $150 million and $500 million leaving a room of $350million while the Accra Metropolitan ICT-Enhanced Traffic Management Project also left a room of $50 million stressing that the three projects could potentially be executed at the cost $450 million instead of $950 million which had been captured as the cost of the projects in the loan.
'The looseness of such broad banding would certainly create room for consultants and contractors to inflate the cost of projects,' he said, adding that government through this is also creating space for corruption and fraudulent manipulation of project cost which will not yield real value for money for the taxpayer.
The minority also raised issue about the fact that the $3 billion Chinese loan covered the Accra Metropolitan ICT-Enhanced Traffic Management and aspects of the Nsawam road, the Dodowa and La Beach roads, yet the Minister of Finance said in the budget that the Finance Ministry had raised bonds to pay contractors on these same projects.
'On the issue of raising bonds to finance these projects captured under the Chinese loan, the Finance Minister did not even come to parliament for approval to raise these bonds,' the minority leader noted, pointing out that it was required of the minister to come to parliament to brief members about the state of indebtedness to the contractors, now that he is also seeking to use part of the Chinese loan to cover the same programmed roads, otherwise there could be double payments for the same work done.
The minority leader also indicated that the Master Facility Agreement (MFA) for the Chinese loan provided for the collateralisation of the nation's oil revenue which the Petroleum Revenue Management Act restricts and, therefore, the loan was in blatant breach of this Petroleum Revenue Management Act.
'The Chinese are lifting our oil even though the loan is not in and this is very serious,' he noted, adding that for the Minister of Information to come out last Thursday and say that the Chinese loan would soon be in despite all these genuine concerns by the minority was most unfortunate.
The Minority leader said there were serious difficulties with the Chinese loans and, therefore, the loan agreement should be brought back to parliament for reconsideration.
According to the minority, the Gas Project which has started and is scheduled to be financed by the Chinese loan is currently in limbo.
'Our information is that as of now, the gas project is the only project that has started in earnest and even that one has run into some challenges and works were halted by the Chinese,' the minority leader said.
The minority, therefore, served notice to the Minister of Finance that he would be summoned before parliament to answer why the gas contract was being executed while the subsidiary agreement relating to the project had not come to parliament.
'Our request for the gas contract to be brought to parliament for scrutiny and possible approval has so far not been heeded to in obvious contravention of Article 181 (5),' he said
Present at the press conference were some members of the minority including Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, MP for Old Tafo; Prof. Gyan Baffour, MP for Wenchi; Ignatius Baffour Awuah, MP for Sunyani West and Isaac Osei, MP for Subin.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr