The Minority has sternly lambasted the Akufo-Addo led government for expressing its willingness to use the country’s natural resources as collateral in securing a $19 billion loan from the Chinese government.
Vice president Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia revealed after a four-day visit to China that the loan will not be based on the traditional model of borrowing and aid, but will be based on bargaining power of the country’s resource such as the 2.8 billion tonnes of iron ore deposits, 960 million metric tonnes of bauxite, 413 million metric tonnes of manganese among others.
According to the Minority, it is a clear departure from the views held by the ruling government when it was in opposition in 2010 when the former NDC administration wanted to use the country’s oil revenue as collateral to secure some $3 billion loan from the Chinese government.
Commenting on the development, Wednesday in an interview with Starr News, Mr. Ato Forson chastised the NPP government’s arrangement with the Chinese, labeling it as “deeply hypocritical.”
He said “when the issue became topical back in the day in 2010 the NPP were clear. They said that the impact on debt stock will be so severe. The same NPP went further to say that the debt as it is coming in and the fact that we are using oil revenue as a form of collateral they would not support it to the extent that they even boycotted parliamentary proceedings and they said that they cannot be part of it.”
“[But] all of a sudden we are witnessing a government that once upon a time when they were in opposition they were telling the people of this country that ‘YES’ they will not borrow—all of a sudden had a new appetite for borrowing.
“We saw recently they borrowed $2.25 billion controversial bond, they are saying they are going out there again to borrow an amount of $2.5 billion for the purpose of the energy sector levy and somebody is telling us that it will not be part of the public debt. How can that be? So you see the hypocrisy,” he added.
