NDC Jealous of Agyapa – Afenyo-Markin

In very simple terms, jealousy and envy could be the most likely reason behind the National Democratic Congress (NDC) stance against the Agyapa Minerals Royalties transaction, Deputy Majority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin has stated on the Floor of the House.

Afenyo-Markin said a previous NDC led government could not get a similar transaction through after the then government had done all the feasibility studies and therefore it is envious of this current transaction that is about to see the light of day. .

“Mr. Speaker I want to boldly ask a question. Is it wrong to borrow against receivables? When Seth Tekper was proposing smart borrowing, what was he doing? When you have a structured borrowing track aimed at using that money to invest in critical areas for the benefit of the ordinary Ghanaian, it amounts to prudent borrowing and we are telling the NDC that it could only be born out of jealousy for anybody to oppose the Agyapa transaction.

“Other than that, Mr. Speaker I challenge the NDC today to come out and bring evidence to suggest that going into the Agyapa transaction was irregular and inconsistent with management  of the economy and that there was anything untoward. Mr. Speaker I throw this challenge with facts”, Afenyo-Markin, Member of Parliament for Effutu constituency stated on the Floor last Friday but the Minority side is yet to stand up to the challenge thrown.

Afenyo-Markin continued: “Go to the Supreme Court in its decision dated 28th July 2016, writ number J17/2016, Dr. Mark Assibey Yeboah versus ECG and two others. The ruling of the Supreme Court is clear. We should not pretend we do not know that we passed a law in this House; Minerals, Income and Investment Fund; we passed that law. We gave that body powers and mandate on what it should do with revenues from our mineral resources. It is an entity with its own Board that can take decisions without coming to Parliament.

“But even when the Supreme Court, in a similar case, had decided that transactions of such nature to the extent that it has been approved by its own Board of Directors, Parliament’s mandate is ousted. This government still brought Agyapa to this House and this tells you how transparent this government is.

“No amount of propaganda, no amount of mischief, no amount of attacks would prevent this government from doing the right thing. Agyapa could have been handled at the Board room. But because of transparency, we bought it here and we are going to raise revenues to support critical areas of growth. Is it because you want to come to power at all coast, any good initiative should be pooh-pooh? Is that what you want to do?