News:
June 14, 2013
In a bid to resolve the challenges impeding the disbursement of the China Development Bank Loan, government has forwarded to parliament, a new set of documents, asking the House to amend some key provisions of the initial agreement covering the three billion dollar loan.
Under the original agreement, the Bank of Ghana was required to transfer 70% of the commercial invoice value of each crude oil lifting by the UNIPEC into a Collection Amount among other things.
Under the new agreement, the government of Ghana will be required to transfer a defined amount into the Collection Account after each lifting and establish the SBLIC to cover the same amount, which will be limited to Government of Ghana’s debt service obligation in each interest period adjusted by the number of crude oil lifting.
Clarifying the issue on Eyewitness News, Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Hon James Klutse Avedzi said the amendment was requested because there were some inconsistencies in the Master Facility Agreement (MFA)
“The reason why the amendment was requested was because there had been some inconsistencies in the MFA… in the original MFA; government would have to transfer 70% of the value of every listing into the collection account,” he stated.
According to Hon Avedzi, it was discovered that the initial agreement was in conflict with the Petroleum Revenue Management Law passed by Parliament.
“The Petroleum Revenue Management Law states that anytime there is a listing, the money must go into the Petroleum Holding Fund and 70% of that will be transferred into the annual budget funding amount.
There has been a need for an amendment again to determine how much is needed to be transferred into the debt service account so instead of 70% from every listing into the debt service account, we will transfer a determined amount,” he stated.
On his part, ranking member on the Finance Committee, Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, said he was concerned that the gas project contract under the CDB loan agreement had still not been brought to Parliament for scrutiny.
“We are concerned that part of the constitution is not being adhered to. Everyone wants to support the gas project but Article 181(5) is very clear that it is an international economic transaction… there is a contract between SINOPEC and the government of Ghana and we want them to bring the contract because SINOPEC is working on the project and that is the problem we have with it.
We must adhere to the constitution irrespective of your political persuasion. We need to know the amount, cost of project and I am sure parliament will approve it so I don’t know why the ministers of Energy and are hesitant in bringing the contract to parliament. That creates more suspicion as if there is something in there that they don’t want anyone to see.”
Citifmonline.com