The Finance Minister under erstwhile Mahama administration, Seth Terkper, says that the Akufo-Addo administration should have utilized the nearly six billion dollars accrued from COVID-19 judiciously.
Speaking to Francis Abban on Morning Starr, Mr. Terkper disclosed that the Akufo-Addo- led administration could have used the COVID-19 monies to revive Ghana’s ailing economy during the pandemic.
He said Ghana is no longer a convincing place for investment adding that the government must start taking corrective measures to convince investors.
“The other reason why it’s longer convincing is about COVID, Ghana got closed to 6 billion, I am not talking about cedis I mean US dollars to support COVID between 2020 and 2021. I can give you three of them the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 1.7 billion dollars, another 1 billion, World Bank about 600, the Stabilization Fund 300 billion that alone will give you 400 billion and Bank of Ghana 1.7 billion US dollars.
“So where did all these money go such that it cannot tackle the issues of the economy, I agree that it was worse of crisis we’ve had no question about it. But before then there was global financial crisis and there was the fall in crude prices. But where did all these monies go,” he quizzed.
Mr. Terkpe continued “We are not talking of gains but we always talking about the part of COVID, just as we talk about the cost of the bailout without talking about revenue flow from ESLA which is going to be 25 billion dollars by 2025. Now we are talking about COVID without talking about nearly 6 billion dollars that have come.
“Where did all these money go and then the monies from the Three Oil Fields, the highest oil revenue was in 2020. Why are we no giving the debt management report and the rest?”
