We have a report on the value-for-money agreement Sinohydro – Oppong Nkrumah meets Minority

General News of Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Source: citinewsroom.com

2019-04-10

The Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, indicated that the concerns expressed by the minority face the lack of audit of the resource optimization for the Sinohydro agreement of $ 2 billion was dishonest.

"The optimization of resources is not a prerequisite for the approval of Parliament," retorted the minister at the Citi Breakfast Show.

"What Parliament sees as financial terms and technical specifications are also made available to the sectoral committee," Oppong Nkrumah said.

The minister also said that "there is a report on value for money as we speak," he said in response to statements by the hierarchy member of the Roads Committee. and Parliament transport, Kwami Agbodza.

Kwami Agbodza said the vice president, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, was preventing technical officials from proposing an audit of resource optimization on the Sinohydro agreement.

"It sometimes happens that the Parliament says to go ahead but shares with us the optimization of the resources when that will be done," added Mr. Oppong Nkrumah.

According to him, the audit of the optimization of the resources addresses the problems of risk and prescribes the means to manage them.

Kwami Agbodza also complains that no legal opinion has been requested on the transaction.

But Mr. Oppong Nkrumah reiterated that the search for a legal opinion was not a prerequisite for the adoption by Parliament.

"It is not a common practice that the GA has to provide written notice to Parliament whenever it considers an agreement of this nature."

"I am surprised that if the committee actually needed it, I would have thought that it would have asked the Attorney General to make this opinion available," he added.

The first phase of the project, costing $ 646.6 million, begins with the Tamale Interchange project.

The road infrastructure in Ghana will benefit from $ 1.5 billion of funds guaranteed by the agreement.

Other roads for the first phase have been agreed, according to the minister.

Main project support was agreed between Ghana and China in 2018 to address major infrastructure challenges in the country.

As part of the deal, Sinohydro Group Limited of China will supply the infrastructure chosen by the government in exchange for Ghana's refined bauxite.

Some projects include the construction of roads, bridges, interchanges, hospitals, social housing, among other projects.