The Ghanaian Parliament has accepted the $750 million loan arrangement required by the government to fulfil the 2022 budget’s infrastructure projects.
The government has requested $1 billion, and this sum is a portion of it.
After Kwaku Kwarteng, the chairman of the Finance Committee, submitted the resolution to the House for approval, the loan was granted.
The Minority voted against the remaining $250 million because of ambiguity. Before approving the loan, Kwame Governs Agbodza, the committee’s ranking member, requested clarification from the Finance Minister and the Roads Ministry on its specific terms and conditions.
When the deal was presented to parliament earlier this month as a way to raise cash for infrastructure projects in Ghana’s 2022 budget, Mr. Kwarteng indicated that he would want it to be approved so that Ghanaians may profit from it.
‘We have detected certain projects being repeated in the agreement,’ the Minority pointed out. This is not right in our opinion, and we will not support it. “We’d want to get certain things clearer….”
That’s all we’re trying to do,” he said. The information we have so far is quite restricted,” Mr Agbodza said in Parliament on July 20.
Cassiel Ato Forson, the Finance Committee’s top-ranking member, also expressed dissatisfaction with the country’s debt levels.
The interest and amortization he predicted would absorb all of the first quarter’s tax income would prove to be correct.
There were no funds available to cover the interest and amortization payments made during the course of the time, according to him.
Please allow me to put my worries about Ghana’s debt sustainability on record for record. GHS12.9 billion in total taxable income was collected in the first quarter of this year, according to information from the Ministry of Finance published on its website. Interest payments and amortization alone account for GHS13.9 billion of this total.
Meanwhile, below is the list of projects, the government has informed Parliament that the $750 million will be used for:
- Suame Roads
- Sofoline interchange
- Flower pot interchange
- All African Games infrastructure