Govt’s intention to mortgage gas reserve not ideal - Kojo Poku

Energy expert, Kojo Poku says government’s intention to mortgage Ghana’s gas reserve with China for a Chinese loan is unjustifiable.

The New Patriotic Party in a press conference earlier this week alleged that government has taken a decision to mortgage its gas reserve with china.

The move according to the party is to lure China Development Bank to reactivate the remaining two billion dollar Chinese loan.

Acting Minister of Power who doubles as the Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, has confirmed government’s intention to mortgage it for a period of 19 years starting from the year 2018.

But Kojo Poku says government could wait to utilize her natural resources to achieve what it desires rather than mortgaging it.

He wondered why government will consider mortgaging a key resource like gas. “Why do they need to mortgage our gas reserve to get the money now to do what? Obviously anything that you mortgage is discounted and the discount is heavily. So what is the rush to get the money that we cannot wait to utilize our own resources for the betterment of Ghana?”

He added, “The only reason you will want to mortgage something is because you are in need of money”. “…Is the same thing that we did with our oil reserve.

Most of our oil reserve that we are bringing out now, part of it was used to get the loan for the gas plant. If we keep doing that the risk involved in mortgaging our reserve is that it is heavily discounted,” he noted.