No Money: Ken Ofori-Atta now avoiding Calls from Investors – Adongo

Bolgatanga Central MP, Hon. Isaac Adongo, has revealed that the Finance Ministry, led by Ken Ofori-Atta has now resorted to avoiding phone calls from investors as the days draw near for the US$12billion that the government borrowed to mature.

In a write-up, Hon Adongo reveals the reason for Ofori-Atta and the Databank-infested Finance Ministry’s disgraceful disappearing acts is that there is no money to pay back the debt.

“Unfortunately, frantic calls by investors and creditors to the Ministry of Finance to get updates and clarity of thought and measures being taken to turn the economy around continue to fall on rocks as the calls are avoided and unanswered.”

Also, programmes that the government has drawn up, including collateralizing future e-levy proceeds have not proven intelligent and reliable as surety for the repayment of the huge debt in the estimation of investors.

“To save our dear country from further embarrassment and international ridicule, pick the calls of the investors whose $12 billion Eurobonds you borrowed and came to eat Kenkey and fish or direct the calls to your misfiring economic maestro, Dr. Bawumia the Walewale Adam Smith,” Hon. Adongo advised.

The huge debt was contracted through the numerous Eurobonds that Ofori-Atta developed a penchant for immediately after becoming Finance Minister.

Adongo points out that the corrupt contract Ofori-Atta gave his private company, Databank Financial Services as a so-called bond market expert, is what seduced him into borrowing the country into a manhole.

And now that the time has come for the country to pay, there is no money because investors are refusing to lend anymore to Ghana in fear that the country cannot pay back and because of this, the dubious cycle of borrowing to pay debt can no longer continue.

Hon. Adongo warns that “Between July -September 2022, Ghana needs a miraculous fighting chance to avoid default in paying our offshore interest liability if we still can’t borrow large sums of forex loans in the face of the twin challenge of low revenue performance and record low international reserves to fund these offshore obligations.”

He advises that, under the circumstances, the way out is for Ghana to initiate steps to engage investors and creditors for debt and interest payments restructuring.

According to Hon. Adongo, the fears of investors have been heightened even more by the recent revelation by a key influence peddler close to the corridors of power of serious consideration of a “price control” regime, long abandoned by civilized and contemporary economies.

He reveals that the government had been touting the e-levy as something that could be relied on to repay the debt saying the government actually intends to collateralize future e-levy collections to pay back debt, along with the collateralization of mineral royalty receipts through the Agyapa deal.

However, investors have not been buying the nonsense because, apparently, apart from the fact that the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has vowed to cancel the e-levy and scuttle Agyapa when it returns to power, the unpopular tax has also not been yielding as much as was expected.

Then there is the situation where the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison recently said he does not understand Ghana’s inflation, something that Hon. Adongo says is an admission that Dr. Addison does not know what he is about in the office from where he is supposed to be governing Ghana’s fiscals.

Source: whatsupnewsghana