Agyapa Deal: Minority maintains rejection after Ofori-Atta’s justification

The minority has rejected governments’ latest defense of the Agyapa mineral royalties deal as it insists the deal is not in the best interest of the country.

The finance ministry said the government will not suspend the deal in compliance with demand from civil society over lack of transparency and possible conflict of interest situation.

It also maintains that there is nothing wrong about the deal contrary to such claims of the minority and CSO’s.

But deputy minority leader James Klutse Avedzi told Star News government’s defense will not wash.

He said; “I will not take this explanation. First of all, we are governed by rules, and laws of this country. Before government can spend out of the consolidated fund, we need a budget, the budget must be approved by parliament.”

He went on “now when the 2020 budget was approved by parliament. Mid-year review was done in July and this mid-year review, there was nothing captured in the mid-year review that additional revenue is coming in this form.”

“I raised the issue and none of them responded or provided an explanation. As we speak now no approval has been given by parliament for them to spend money.”

He questioned “is it only between August 2020 to December 2020 that you are going to leave office that you want to commit this country to a twisted cash flow that you want to receive now? And a new government comes, and the new government has no cash flow from that sector. We don’t think that this is a proper deal. Those explanations given by them does not work.”