Dr. Gideon Boako, MP forTano North
Former Economic Advisor of Ghana’s former Vice President, Dr Gideon Boako, has cautioned the Minister of State in charge of Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu to desist from peddling falsehoods about the previous government.
According to him, it will do a lot of good to the people of Ghana if the government publishes the balances in the sinking fund and stop the peddling of falsehoods.
Dr Gideon Boako who made this known in a post shared via social media said what the government did with the recent payment to bondholders which was announced was to ” simply sweep funds from various accounts into the sinking fund. If there were no funds left as buffers, where would they sweep from?”
He further explained that “We had auction excess on 3rd Jan – over GHc700 million, which was not spent. We left GHc3 billion of end of year revenue also as buffer plus many more unspent funds in various accounts. Off-course they also added as they got auction excesses, too, but to say that there were no significant buffers cannot be true”.
Background
Felix Kwakye Ofosu has dismissed claims by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) that they left buffers for servicing the debts of bondholders.
His remarks come in response to statements from former Finance Minister Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam and other NPP officials, who argued that their government had strategically positioned reserves to ensure that such payments could be smoothly executed.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, February 19, Kwakye Ofosu did not hold back in his critique of the NPP’s assertion.
“For officials of the former government to claim that these payments resulted from their work, they need to point specifically to where those buffers were located.
“Because in order to pay the money, you need to find it and lodge it somewhere. That is what you call a buffer—pending payment at a given date.”
The debate centers on whether the previous government had indeed left behind a financial cushion or if the current administration sourced the funds independently.
Kwakye Ofosu challenged the NPP to provide concrete proof, stating, “If the NPP officials are saying that we were able to pay these monies because they left money in the central fund, it should reflect in the statement of account.”
The numbers, according to him, simply don’t add up. “We are talking about payments within the range of GH¢6 billion. And you and I know that $64,000 cannot amount to GH¢6 billion.”
