The former deputy finance minister and MP for Ajumako-Enyan-Asiam constituency, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson has stated that 7 out of the 10 billion dollars earmarked for the ‘Big Push’ is self-financing.
According to him, even though the ‘Big Push’ is in two folds, the social element that cannot pay for itself will not be more than 25 percent.
The former deputy finance minister said this whilst speaking on the PM express yesterday.
“The 7 billion is self-financing and you [NPP] have used 8 billion for consumption. Self-financing means that you can create a special purpose vehicle, a vehicle that can borrow on its own balance sheet, a vehicle that can invest and, in the end, pay on its own”.
According to him, the NDC has successfully proven that as a country, “we will be able to do a major commercial project that will survive on its own.
“Am telling you that the golden triangle is self-financing. The social one won’t give you anything in return but the commercial ones will. In fact, if there are some social elements it cannot be more than 25% chance that it cannot pay for itself ”.
Dr. Forson explained that “the big push is one of our expenditure measures; one of the biggest expenditure items, recognizing that there is a lot we have to do as far as our expenditure is concerned. And therefore, if we are to rely on the medium expenditure framework of government, we cannot be able to establish that. And that is why we the NDC adapted a development model called the ‘BIG PUSH’
“It is clear that there is a lot of unemployment in the system. It is a fact that businesses have collapsed, the real sector is going down. And so, therefore, there is the need for this economy to revive. A recovery plan is required. How do you do that?
“We, the NDC, should put together a robust plan tackling all the four sectors of the economy. The fiscal; both the expenditure and revenue. The monetary, not necessarily concentrating on price stability but also development. We need to tackle the real sector head-on to ensure that the average Ghanaian gets a better share of the economy. We also needed to address the issues related to debt using again the fiscal policy to address that”.
However, the Information Minister- Kojo Oppong Nkrumah believes the NDC are not telling Ghanaians the truth about how they intend to finance the ‘Big Push’.
“What they are not telling the people of Ghana is that, if they get the mandate, they are going to collapse the infrastructure investment fund, secretize it, borrow 10 billion dollars to add to our contingent liability”.
Dr. Forson has also accused the NPP for engaging in borrowing that was merely meant for consumption in the last four years in office. He added that the NPP has spent about 5 billion dollars on the banking sector clean up.
“In the last four years under president Akufo Addo, they issued 8 billion dollars’ worth of euro bond. There is evidence that, there is not enough capital expenditure to support the 8 billion. We, the NDC, will not go to the capital market and borrow 8 billion for the purpose of consumption.
“The recent banking sector clean up, the mess, that this administration has created cost the nation in excess of about 5 billion US dollars. You are using 5 billion of tax payers’ money to collapse businesses, to close banks, create job losses and in the end, you think someone cannot use 10 billion US dollars to create infrastructure and create jobs”.
