Cost of Terminal 3 construction was never on a public debt bill – John Mahama

Former president, John Dramani Mahama has said the cost of construction for the Terminal 3 section of the Kotoka International Airport was never placed on a public debt bill but a balance sheet of the Ghana Airport Company Limited.

This follows earlier suggestions made by the Aviation Minister, Joseph Kofi Adda indicating that the erstwhile Mahama administration bloated the public debt with the construction of the terminal.

Speaking on Accra-based Class FM on Monday, September 14, 2020, monitored by GhanaWeb, John Mahama said his administration adopted a smart borrowing tactic to construct Ghana’s Terminal 3 section of the airport.

“This [NPP] government has borrowed about GH¢140 billion and what exactly is there to show for it in terms of fixing our social and economic infrastructure? You can do borrowing without adding to the public debt and that is what the [NPP] government has not done and everything has been piled on public debt”

“…So, by the time this [NPP] administration completes its first term, we’re going to have our debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the excess of 75 percent going close on 80 percent and that’s because there’s been unrestrained borrowing for consumption. We the [NDC] started smart borrowing, Terminal three is not on a public debt bill but the balance sheet of the Ghana Airport Company Limited,” he explained.

The NDC flagbearer assured that his next administration when elected, will adopt a smart borrowing tactic to finance one of its outlined manifesto initiatives, the “Big Push.”

The initiative, according to the NDC flagbearer will see an injection of US$10 billion accelerated into an infrastructural plan intended to drive jobs and entrepreneurial agenda when elected in December 2020.

“We are looking at what I call the Big Push, injecting some US$10 billion to dualise our roads, complete the remainder of the 200 Community Day Senior High Schools, finish all the hospital projects that have been left abandoned, and construct bridges to open up the country”, Mr. Mahama earlier said.