Minority Chief Whip, Governs Kwame Agbodza, has called on the government to show openness and transparency in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) so that all Ghanaians can “buy in”.
He said the current opaque way the Vice President and the Minister of Finance are handling the negotiations with the IMF is only keeping many Ghanaians in the dark, so that they do not know what is going on.
“As we speak, we have a situation where only Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and Ken Ofori-Atta know what they are talking about. All they want is to decide that Ghanaians pay a certain amount of money from private sources to bail them out as part of the debt restructuring that many people are doing ,” he said.
Addressing the media on Ghana’s negotiations with the IMF at Parliament House, Mr. Agbodza said today, there are other important parts of the negotiations that Ghanaians are not aware of, creating “deep concern”.
“I encourage them to get help because there are people inside and outside the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who can help, what Ghanaians cannot do is to call Dr Bawumia and Ken Ofori-Atta because we cannot keep waiting for them to help .we know what happens and when he likes”, he said.
Postponement of capital projects
Mr. Agboza, who is a National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for Adaklu “claimed that he is aware of a series of meetings that have taken place involving” a closed group of NPP people close to President Akufo-Addo, where decisions have allegedly been made to delaying or canceling about 60 capital projects around the country.
This, he said, even though the government has paid some developers or contractors between 15 and 20 percent mobilization.
Mr. Agbodza, who is also the Ranking Member in the Roads and Transport Committee of Parliament, mentioned some of the projects which include Shama Interchange, La General Hospital, and the road between Tema roundabout, Akosombo and Adomi Bridge.
“These are foreign companies that are mobilizing and sitting in their offices because the government cannot instruct them to go ahead because the Minister of Finance has said that all these projects must be stopped.
“So we may be losing value because they are taking money in terms of mobilization and they have set up camp and they are in the office drinking tea but you can’t blame them,” he said.
Stop losing jobs
“This lack of understanding creates anxiety because there are financiers, developers, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers and even ordinary workers who work with these entities who are now not sure if they will lose their work permanently,” he said.
The MP said that some foreign companies have already started layoffs.
“I encourage them to get help because there are people inside and outside the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who can help, what Ghanaians cannot do is to call Dr Bawumia and Ken Ofori-Atta because we cannot keep waiting for them to help .we know what happens and when he likes”.
Source: graphiconline.com
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