The Member of Parliament (MP) for Asuogyaman Constituency in the Eastern Region, Thomas Ampem Nyarko, has intimated that the Minority in Parliament will remain firm and resolute in its decision not to approve a $500million loan facility until the Ministry of Finance furnishes the House with a road map on debt sustainability.
“Until the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta furnishes the House with the country’s debt sustainability plans and provides a road map to take him out of debt situation, the Minority will remain firm and resolute in our decision,” he stressed.
According to Mr Nyarko, who is a member of the Finance Committee of Parliament, the decision by the Minority in disapproval of the loan facility would not amount to destabilising the government’s business.
The government is seeking approval for $500 million loan facility to fund health infrastructure, digitalisation and implementation of the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) project.
Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Minister for Communication and Digitalization, urged the Minority to revise their stance and support the approval of the loan facility because they were urgent and critical.
She cautioned that “if the right decisions are not taken today, the country will probably be in a more difficult situation tomorrow and the loan for the Ghana Digital Acceleration Project will provide funding for entrepreneurial skills development, training and startup capital to steer up innovation, eco-system and technical system of our county”.
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful added that the loan would also provide funding to extend connectivity to some hard-to-reach areas.
But Mr Nyarko postulated that there was no clear indication of what the funds would sought to achieve since most of the loan facility would go into consultancy and insisted the Minority were not against loans per se, but until they see clear path to debt sustainability, it would not make sense for them to continue to approve loan facilities for the government..
“We have vowed to block the approval of new loan facilities the government will put before the House, we will not allow further ballooning of the debt stock which is at unsustainable levels and we will not support the government to plunge the country into further debt crisis,” Mr Nyarko pointed out.
