Minister blames media for sabotaging "fake" loans

Senior Minister designate J.H. Mensah (MP) has finally, officially, singled out the media in Ghana as the cause of the government?s inability to access either the CNTCI or IFC (not the International Finance Corporation) loans.

Referring to what he termed ?politics in the media,? Mr. Mensah insisted that the loans were so credible that while the government was on one hand compelled to abandon the one billion-dollar IFC loan it had no option than to push the process for the acquisition of the CNTCI loan to the backburner.

Meaning that but for the ?politics in the media?, Ghana would have easily accessed the controversial loan. The 77-year-old Senior Minister in waiting, easily the most experienced member of the Kufuor administration told parliament?s Appointments Committee when he appeared before it Friday, that while government at the time had no doubt about the credibility of the creditors, developments especially in the media forced it to rescind the desire to pursue the loan. Mr. Mensah who had promised at the president?s interaction with the media in 2003 that; ?the money will come and you will be glad? showed political grit, remarking that at the time he made the statement, the parties they ?were dealing with were of great credibility.?

In his estimation, the scales turned when issues were raised about the credibility of the providers of the facility which, made it difficult for government to continue to pursue the loan. He also decried the entrenched partisan and media positions, which he claimed overtook the economics of the facilities leading to what might easily be described as a face saving about turn from government.

According to him, when the ?uproar? started in Ghana, the providers got nervous and began to back away. ?Because of the politics, the media and so on, I found out later that the providers had their own reason for not pursuing an arrangement with Ghana, ?it was better for us to abandon it.? To the Sunyani East MP even though one billion dollars is a reasonably significant amount of money, it was not so extraordinary as to warrant the kind of criticism it was subjected to.

As for the specific case of the CNTCI loan, Mr. Mensah explained that government had to push the loan, passed by parliament, to the back-burner not because it was not credible but because once more, the politics in the media overtook the economics. A 300-million-dollar loan facility was earmarked from the CNTCI for economic expansion such as in the area of the President Special Initiative (PSI) for the establishment of factories, under the rural enterprise programme embarked upon by the government to create wealth among Ghanaians Mr. Mensah said ?there is a lot of money out there in the private capital market, our job is to try and access as much of it as we can.?

He cautioned that the nation does not allow the ?politics in the media? to stand in the way of the country?s ability to deal with the private capital market whose operations are not like the ways of the World Bank. ?It is a different ball game, we got to learn how to play it according to its own rules, then we?ll be successful,? Mr. Mensah submitted.