Seth Terkper, the former Finance Minister under President Mahama, believes the Akufo-Addo administration should have spent the approximately $6 billion raised from COVID-19 wisely.
Mr. Terkper told Francis Abban on Morning Starr that the Akufo-Addo administration might have used COVID-19 funds to help Ghana’s weak economy recover during the pandemic.
He stated that Ghana is no longer a compelling investment destination, and that the government must begin taking corrective actions to persuade investors.
“The other reason it’s less convincing is because of COVID. Ghana has committed to spending $6 billion, not in cedis, but in US dollars, to support COVID between 2020 and 2021. I can give you three of them: 1.7 billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), another 1 billion from the World Bank, 600 billion dollars from the Stabilization Fund, 300 billion dollars from the Stabilization Fund alone, and 1.7 billion dollars from the Bank of Ghana.
“So where did all this money go that it couldn’t deal with the economy’s problems?” “I agree that it was the worst crisis we’ve ever had, there’s no doubt about that.” But there was a worldwide financial crisis and a drop in petroleum prices before that. “However, where did all these funds go?” he inquired.
“We are not talking about gains, but we are always talking about the part of COVID,” Mr. Terkpe said, “just as we are talking about bailout costs without talking about the revenue flow from ESLA, which will be 25 billion dollars by 2025.” Now we’re talking about COVID without mentioning the roughly $6 billion in funding.
“Where did all of this money go, and then there were the funds from the Three Oil Fields, with the largest oil revenue in 2020.” Why aren’t we handing up the debt management report and everything else?”
