Parliament approves Buyer's Credit Agreement

Accra, April 14, GNA - Parliament on Wednesday by a unanimous vote of 150 approved the Buyer's Credit Agreement between Ghana and the Bank of China involving 12,886,456 US dollars loan for the supply of 250 buses to Metro Mass Transit Limited.

The approval of the loan came about after some anomalies in the Finance Committee's report on the loan agreement, identified by the minority side of the House were corrected.

The majority side of the House had by a motion in the name of the Minister of Finance, Yaw Osafo Maafo, sought the approval of the loan on Tuesday April 13, 2004, but the minority members of parliament had demanded some explanations and additional documents to convince themselves about the viability of the loan.

The minority requested to know about the interest rate as well as a document covering the on-lending agreement between the government and the Metro Mass Transit Limited, beneficiaries of the loan facility. Mr Osafo Maafo assured the House that on June 15, 2004, the government would submit the on-lending agreement to Parliament for consideration, saying that, "I will personally ensure that the on-lending agreement would be made available to the House on June 15."

He said: "Since we have all agreed that the buses would help ease the transportation problem facing our people, it is only prudent to approve the loan ahead of the House's consideration of the on-lending agreement."