NDC Cries For Share Of HIPC Funds

After more than three years of stiff opposition to the idea of Ghana joining the club of Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC), the minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) is now crying for its share of the HIPC funds. The Deputy Minority Chief Whip, John Akologu Tia, has accused the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government of discriminating against the NDC in doling out monies from the HIPC fund to the members of Parliament.

According to Mr. Tia in an exclusive interview with The Heritage, "the Ministry of Finance has given an amount of ?100m from the HIPC fund to each NPP Member of Parliament and the Independent MPs who do business with the NPP."

Mr. Tia, also the MP for Talensi, alleged that the monies were given to the MPs on the majority side for any project of their choice in their respective constituencies.

This, he argued, is discriminating on the part of the Kufuor administration and a way of opening more room for corruption.

Obviously peeved, Mr. Tia described the Kufuor administration as corrupt and a "country-crasher" that has no feeling for the plight of Ghanaians.

Asked why the NDC should expect to enjoy HIPC benefits after opposing it, and making a mockery of it, the Talensi MP said: "We opposed HIPC because it is a bad policy; it came into being only because we did not get the votes in Parliament to stop it."

Mr. Tia explained, however, that once the policy passed through Parliament and is now law, it ceases to be a party policy but a national one from which every citizen is entitled to enjoy.

Though campaigning for his share, the Deputy Minority Whip described the disbursement of HIPC funds for MPs personal projects as an abuse of public funds, which, is compounded by the secrecy in which it is shrouded.

Meanwhile, other NDC MPs The Heritage However, a number of NPP MPs contacted by The Heritage On his part, the MP for Ayawaso Central and Greater Accra Regional Minister, Sheikh I.C. Quaye said "it is not true? there is nothing like that," while the MP for Salaga (an independent candidate) said simply: "please leave me out of this".

Ghana joined the HIPC initiative on March 9, 2001 and is expected to reach her completion point later this year.

Meanwhile, the Talensi MP has also lambasted the NPP government for what he called "no effort to rejuvenate folded up factories."

Citing examples as the Asutuare Sugar Factory, the Bawku Vegetable Oil Mills and the Pwalugu Tomato Factory, Mr. Tia regretted that successive governments have not been able to reactivate collapsed factories after the 1966 coup that overthrew Ghana's first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. He claimed, however, that efforts by the NDC have proved to be better than its successor government.

He said: "There is nothing so surprising than the NPP government's inability to revitalise 'dead factories'. Yet this is the government that promised thousands of jobs if voted to power. Instead they are interested in divestiture."