National Democratic Member of Parliament for Yapei Kusawgu constituency Samuel Abu Jinapor has likened Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister, to Nana Appiah Mensah, aka NAM 1.
Commenting after the Minister had briefed the House on the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme, the lawmaker said what the Minister had done to the economy was not different from what NAM 1 did to those who invested with his collapsed gold dealership firm.
”If you evaluate what the Finance Minister is doing and evaluate what NAM 1 of Menzgold did, the two are synonymous, and the two are the same,” he said.
Mr. Jinapor indicated that Ghana is so broke and its economy mismanaged to the point that the government cannot own up the coupon payment on monies that the government took from bondholders.
He also expressed outrage that the Bank of Ghana has since 2021 advanced over Ghc40 billion to the government as loans.
The lawmaker said it was outrageous that the central bank claimed the money was an overdraft, but when the funds hit the accounts, he converted them into bonds.
”The issue is credibility. That is why the women and men who are old don’t trust the Minister. The President told us there would be no haircut. It turned out to be false. The Minister himself promised us that individuals would not be part of DDEP, then on the eve of Christmas, he issued a statement that he would exempt pensioners and bring in individual bondholders into the whole frame. This is a serious matter.”
He asked the House to put their political differences aside and pass a resolution compelling the Minister to declare that all the pensioner bondholders would be exempted from the DDEP.
He went on to say that the Minister should be compelled to pay the bondholders coupon rates and principal as agreed initially.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
