Vice President Bawumia defends $19bn Chinese 'joint venture'

Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia has addressed criticism saying that the government has yet again gone for a loan, allegations referring to the recent $19bn financial injection courtesy of the government of China.

Speaking at a China-Africa Joint Research and Exchange Program, Vice President Bawumia said that the recent $19bn financial injection popularly reported as a loan is in fact a joint venture.

He said that the government realized that it could not borrow money in the traditional sense, but rather sought to "leverage" 5 percent of Ghana's bauxite to "unlock close to $20bn".

“We could not ask China to give us aid to finance this quantum of investment we needed. We could not borrow this quantum of money we needed, but we knew we had bauxite sitting in the ground.” said the Vice President, speaking at the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) program themed “Building Resilient Industries and Infrastructure for Economic Transformation in Africa: The Role of China”.

“So we have US $460 billion potentially sitting in the ground somewhere and we need US$ 20billion for our rapid economic transformation,” he continued.

Vice President Bawumia stated that government was looking for partners to refine the country's bauxite deposit, but that it wanted the mineral to be developed in Ghana. "That is why we want to set up a refinery in Ghana so we can refine and export,” he said.