Member of Parliament (MP) for Damango Constituency and Ranking Member of the Committee on Mines and Energy in Parliament, Adam Mutawakiku, has asserted that the mounting pressure of the government on parliament to pass a bill for the use of the Heritage Fund to fight the coronavirus and cushion the economy is just their excuse to use the money for something untoward.
According to him, there are so many altenatives available to the government to fund the COVID-19 fight so their insistence on tapping into the Heritage Fund is quite suspicious.
He made this statement on Happy98.9FM’s Happy Morning Show:
“This is not the first time the government has tried to tap into the Heritage Fund.
In 2018 the Senior Minister made a hint of using the money to support the free SHS policy and it was not approved and now they want to use the fund to fight COVID-19? This is very suspicious. Why do they always want to use an untouchable fund meant for future generations so badly,” he queried.
The ranking member of the parliamentary committee on Mines and Energy revealed that government has access to a $3billion eurobond which can be used to fight the pandemic and also cushion the economy. “Government has a $3 billion eurobond and want to use part to buy out independent powers producers who are perfectly executing their mandate. We want the government to use that money to absorb the economic shock and stop, trying to buy out power generators,” he stated.
On his authority, the available budgetary surplus from the 2017, 2018 and 2019 fiscal years, can also go a long way to support the COVID-19 fight without the need to touch the Heritage Fund.
The MP advised government to consider cutting down its government size as a critical alternative to cushion the economy. “Reducing the government size can even help us get over 100million Ghana cedi’s to support the economy. You don’t need to collapse the Ministries to attain this sum. There are Ministries with as much as four (4) deputies. We can reduce them to one. The Ministry of Transport and Aviation were previously a single Ministry. We can be prudent and merge them back to reduce cost and get more money,” he said.
He reiterated that, with all these funds and alternatives available, the government trying to tap into the Heritage Fund is quite suspicious.
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta on Monday, March 30,2020 proposed the amendment of the Petroleum Revenue Managemnet Act to allow for government to utilize portions of the Heritage Fund in the fight against COVID-19.
The minority in parliament shot down the idea, arguing that it was not time yet to touch the fund.
By: Joel Sanco
