The finance Minister ken Ofori-Atta has
affirmed that Ghana as a country needs money and every citizen of this country can attest to it.
The minister who was speaking on Citi TV’s point of View’ Wednesday evening indicated that the Akufo-Addo led administration met a budget deficit of 9.3% from the erstwhile Mahama government.
He said, “you can’t get away from the numbers….As to we declaring, we don’t have money, every Ghanaian knew that we’re broke when we came into power.
Speaking on the road sector payments and clamor for roads projects, He indicated that for the past two months the government was authenticating the contracts awarded to these contractors when the came into office.
The minister reiterated that the government within the past two month has been paying road contractors about 1.6 billion cedis
He said about 80% of the 1730 contractors the government own will be paid before the new month starts.
“What i have been able to do is 1.2 billion for road funds, 1.6 billion for the government of Ghana(GoG)…..that in effect goes to bring some liquidity in the sector and construction can begin,” he said.
Mr Ofori-Atta further debunked the assertion that monies to be paid by government does not include interest.
“I am not sure that is totally true because the Interim Payments Certificates(IPCs) we have seen are the IPCs we are then paying,” the minister said.
He said ,”Contractors have always felt that government does not pay on time and therefore load up in the pricing anyway.. there is an issue of legacy payment that we are doing very well to pay..”
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
