By Edzorna Francis Mensah
The Minority in Parliament has given an early indication to reject loan agreements to be brought before, the House for consideration and approval.
The NDC MPs at the Finance Committee held on Tuesday, 22, 2022 have already disagreed with the Majority as the officials from the Ministry of Finance tabled three separate loan agreements in sum of USA$500 Million to finance government projects.
The NDC Member of the Finance Committee, Thomas Ampem Nyarko, supported by his Ranking Cassel Ato Forson said, they have taken a simple decision not to approve an additional loan in the “face of our current debt situations”.
According to him, the reasons given by the officials including the Communication Minister are not good enough, and, “we will not support this move at all”.
The pending loans as proposed include USA$150 for the primary health care investment programme, USA$150 credit from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group to finance the public finance management for service delivery programme and USA$200 Million credit from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group to finance the Ghana digital accelerated project.
On digitalization, the proposed project interventions will help create viable start-ups poised for expansion and strengthen Ghana’s digital innovation capacity, contributing to job creation and productivity gains critical to COVID-19 recovery.
The proposed project will also explore support for what the Communication Minister called the YouStart program to facilitate job creation in the country via skills and capacity development and access to funding for young entrepreneurs.
The Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu Ekuful in responding to the Minority called for cool heads and stressed that fact, “there is going to be further engagement with minority on these issues” and that, the key objectives, which are to be achieved by end 2027, are put into four (4) components as outlined below: Component 1: Ensuring Inclusive and Safe Digital Transformation (US$43 million) This component will support Government’s continued efforts to build solid foundational
blocks for inclusive and safe digital transformation.
Component 2. Modernizing Digital Government Services (US$76 million): This will focus on change management towards strengthened digital governance, enhance government’s digital and user-centric services, and invest in the future of government work for viable transformation.
Component 3. Support for Digital Transformation of Productive Strategic Sectors (US$66 million): This component will strengthen the scaling up of Ghana’s digital entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem, enhance efforts to transform digitization in the agricultural sector, and support skills for digital jobs and inclusion.
Component 4. Project Management and Implementation Support (USA$12 million): Under this component, support will be rendered for the management and implementation of project-associated activities.