Heritage Fund is 'useless & unproductive' - Kwesi Pratt

Kwesi Pratt Jnr. has labeled the Heritage Fund as a 'useless unproductive enterprise'.

According to him, it doesn't make sense for the leaders of the country to store up money for future generations while the nation suffers.

Speaking on Radio Gold's 'Alhaji and Alhaji' programme, monitored by Peacefmonline.com, Kwesi Pratt asked "how foolish" can the nation be to put and save money in the Heritage Fund with an interest rate of 2 percent.

He wondered why the Fund is being preserved for the future, meanwhile the leaders are borrowing from the international communities at an interest rate of 10%, to help improve the economy.

“You take your money, hard-earned money, and you put it in a fund and you’re earning 2% on it. And you say that that money is so important that you won’t touch it. You need money now and you say that you won’t touch it because look, it’s so important for future generations. You won’t touch it. Meanwhile, you need money to do things now which will provide your people with a better future, Infrastructural development, education and so on. So, what do you do?

“You go to the market and you borrow in order to meet those challenges today. You’re borrowing at an interest rate of 10% and investing your money which you could have used and gaining 2%. How foolish can you be? I mean how foolish can you be? It doesn’t make sense at all.”

To him, the wisest thing for the Government of Ghana to do is to tap from the Fund to resolve the challenges confronting Ghanaians and stop "keeping money in a box".

"Future generations will tell us that we were absolutely wrong," he stressed.

“Simple economics will teach us that keeping money in a box or in a fund for future generations to come and use is a useless unproductive enterprise. So, I was opposed to the establishment of that so-called Heritage Fund from the very beginning. It doesn’t make sense. But we’ve agreed to establish this Heritage Fund. Somehow, all of us were conned into believing that it will provide some security for future generations. I’ve no problem with that. It’s our collective error and we will live by it," he added.