Parliament on Saturday approved a $2 billion Master Project Support Agreement (MPSA) for improvement in rural electrification, construction of roads, hospitals, affordable houses, interchanges, bridges, fishing landing sites and other infrastructural projects.
The MPSA is a ‘barter’ agreement between the government and Sinohydro Corporation Limited of China that would allow Sinohydro to execute those projects for Ghana while the government repays with refined bauxite.
But the Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) strongly opposed the agreement, saying the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is using the country’s bauxite reserves as a guarantee to go for that huge loan facility.
The Minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu, said everything about the agreement appears to be a loan as contained in Article 181 Clause six of the 1992 Constitution.
According to the Minority leader, the government has committed itself to the agreement by signing an agreement fee, management fee, commitment fee and arrangement fee.
He said the Minority in principle is not against the supposed agreement, but the government and the Majority NPP in Parliament should not tell Ghanaians that the arrangement is for ‘barter’ purposes.
Haruna Iddrisu said the Minority would not be associated with such facility because it’s a loan brought to Parliament in a disguised form which would eventually add to the country’s total debt stock.
“What is even more worrying is that since the government cannot quantify the country’s bauxite deposit, it has agreed to a condition to top up the amount being requested if the refined bauxite does not accrue that amount.”
The NPP MP for Effutu, Alex Afenyo-Markin, lambasted the Minority for their stance against the proposed ‘barter’ arrangement, which he said would significantly help to bridge the infrastructural gap of the country.
He said the agreement is just like the Karpower agreement entered into by the previous NDC administration.
Mr Markin said the intention of the government is to add value to the country’s raw bauxite resources and also develop the country’s infrastructure and help create jobs.
According to him, over 400 truck drivers would be employed under the arrangement in haulage of the bauxite to the processing plant.
He said many jobs would be created in the value chain and the country’s infrastructure deficit would also be significantly addressed especially in the northern parts of the country.
“Under the arrangement the government, through the Ghana Integrated Bauxite and Alumina Development Authority, will establish a bauxite processing plant to process the raw bauxite into alumina which is expected to increase the value of bauxite 10 times its original form value,” he said.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr