General News of Wednesday, 31 October 2018
Source: citinewsroom.com
2018-10-31
James Klutse Avedzi, Deputy Minority Leader in Parliament
The Deputy Minority Leader in Parliament, James Klutse Avedzi, has described plans for a $1.5 billion facility to be contracted for the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) as “ridiculous”.
The facility is to be used for educational infrastructural development.
The request for the facility was captured in the business statement of the House on Tuesday.
“[Tuesday] morning, there was a request for GETFund to borrow $1.5 billion. For now, we don’t have the details; where they will be borrowing the money from, what the terms and conditions of that borrowing [are],” Mr. Avedzi told Citi News.
“To me personally, I think that $1.5 billion is on the high side,” the National Democratic Congress MP added.
Mr. Avedzi suggested that a facility of $500 million “should be sufficient so we can see how they [GETFund] will be able to manage that money. But giving them a blanket GHc7.5 billion which is $1.5 billion is on the high side.”
GETFund recently secured a $500 million facility to boost infrastructure at the various schools in the country.
The facility was for the construction of new schools and the expansion of infrastructure and existing ones.
Ghana has struggled with an infrastructure deficit, which has been brought into focus because of increased enrollment that accompanied the Free Senior High School policy.
The amount was also for contractors who are owed arrears.
GETFund has struggled to pay contractors working on infrastructure projects.
The Association of Conscientious Public Sector Contractors in July said it had not been paid for work done in schools since 2016.
The Association also threatened to sue the government.
This prompted the Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, to urge contractors undertaking various GETFund projects to consider other sources of funding in the open market to complete abandoned projects.