John Jinapor, the Member of Parliament for Yapei/Kusawgu, has exposed the government’s lies about MPs unanimously approving a loan agreement between the government and the World Bank for an amount of $200 million to finance the Ghana Digital Acceleration Project.
John Jinapor, the Member of Parliament for Yapei/Kusawgu, has denied that MPs unanimously approved a loan agreement between the government and the World Bank for an amount of $200 million to finance the Ghana Digital Acceleration Project.
Speaking on Eyewitness News with Umaru Sanda Amadu, he explained that it will be unfair for anyone to blame the Minority caucus for the passage of the loan agreement adding that they vehemently opposed the loan agreement, but the numbers did not favour them.
He argued that Ghanaians are faced with economic challenges and passing the loan agreement will worsen the situation. “It’s not true that the House unanimously approved those loans. If you look at the committee’s report it will tell you that it was by Majority decision.
The committee’s report will attest to the fact that the Minority side objected. So the Majority carried the day by one single vote”. “Today, the voice vote clearly indicated that we, the Minority side gave an emphatic no.
The Speaker gave it to the Majority side because they have the numbers. If anybody wants to blame the Minority for the insensitivity and incompetence of this government, I think that it will be very unfortunate and unfair,” he explained.
Deputy Finance Minister, Dr. John Kumah noted that these loans are not new agreements but loans already contracted. “These are not new loans, they are loans we have already taken on in our books. We want to put it on record that these are loans we have already contracted on our books and require Parliamentary approval,” Mr. Kumah said.
John Jinapor lashed out at Dr. Kumah for being disingenuous with his comment on the loan agreements. “The Deputy Finance Minister was being disingenuous, to say the least. John Kumah should take his time, learn from past experience and move away from this narrative because it will not help him at all,” he asserted.
The House also approved an amount of $150 million dollars for financing of West Africa Food System Resilience Programme phase 2 under Multi-phase programmatic approach. Parliament also approved an on-lending agreement between government and Development Bank Ghana for an amount of £170 million Euros to support establishment of financially sustainable development Bank.
