Former President John Mahama has said that the government’s decision to re-introduce the Agyapa Mineral Royalties Bill for passage in Parliament is a desperate move to mortgage the future of the Ghanaian youth.
In an interview on Cape Coast-based Cape FM, he listed the motivations as President Akufo-Addo’s mismanagement of the country’s finances, and the greed of his cousin Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta.
“They are mortgaging Ghana for everything. They have sold everything for loans. Now they don’t have anything to sell anymore. It is our gold that is left, that is the Agyapa they want to do,” Mahama remarked.
“Because they see that they’ve sold the utensils, they’ve sold the chairs in the hall, the bed in the bedroom has been sold, now they are looking for the next item to sell. They have settled on the windows to sell. That is our gold, which they want to sell this time. They want to use that to go and collect over one billion dollars.”
His comment was in reaction to an announcement by the President that the scandalous Agyapa Mineral Royalties deal will be repackaged and reintroduced in Parliament.
In 2020, the deal which seeks to turn the country’s mineral royalty receipts into a special purpose vehicle and use it for a US$500million loan by listing on the London Stock Exchange was approved by Parliament.
However, it had not been carried through after then Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, investigated and confirmed it was stewed in corruption and that President Akufo Addo was directly involved and had made a direct attempt at arm-twisting Amidu to “shelve” the damning corruption report on the deal.
Former President Mahama pointed out that the 10% mineral royalty receipts has been a traditional source of money for the government, but President Akufo-Addo wants to mortgage that for money that he can spend today.
Mahama pointed out that the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta is the spearhead of the dubious deal and is motivated to push through such deals because his private company, Databank Financial Services, has been hired as an advisor to the government, makes money anytime such deals go through.
The same Ofori-Atta, he pointed out, has already mortgaged the GETFund and the Energy Sector Levy (ESLA).
“Even though the ESLA bond we brought was supposed to be for five (5) years, today the last ESLA bond they did they have extended it to between 20 – 30 years. It means you and I; our children and our grandchildren will continue paying the loan until beyond 2030. GETFund has been mortgaged for the next 15 years. This means all contributions we pay for GETFund will only go toward paying loans and not for anything else”, he disclosed.
“Our children will pay and pay and pay but won’t be able to finish paying. Our grandchildren will take over from them and continue paying the debts” he added.
Mahama warned that, if the trend is not halted, it will get to a point where we can no longer pay our debts.”