Member of parliament for the Bolgatanga central constituency, Hon. Isaac Adongo has expressed surprise at the stance of the New Patriotic Party on the use of Ghana’s Heritage fund to fund their popular free SHS policy.
Senior Minister, Osafo Marfo this week hinted that the New Patriotic Party’s popular policy, ‘Free SHS’ may be funded with the Heritage fund.
But speaking to A1 Radio’s Azongo Albert on Daybreak Upper East, Hon. Adongo expressed surprise at the position of the Akufo-Addo led government.
“First I think that this position of the government is very surprising. Very surprising because it is not the first time we have had to engage in a debate about this fund. Somewhere last year or two years when we were facing some economic challenges, discussions about using the Heritage fund to support some critical sectors of the economy came up and it became very clear that the people of Ghana and the same people who are now in Ghana felt vehemently strongly that that was not the way to go. So, for the same people who had said too much and convinced people to believe that that was not the way to go to turn around and use the same facility will be shocking and a betrayal of the trust of Ghanaians.”
“I want to emphasise that the revenue from petroleum is from a resource which depletes. It will come to a point that we will not have a drop of oil that we will be able to export,” Hon. Adongo mentioned that the country may be faced with challenges if the fund is used on free SHS and the resource depletes because the country depends greatly on monies made from oil.
He cited an example of the mining industry, mentioning that after gold depleted, the country has been challenged because no fund was set aside to provide the revenue it used to provide to support the country’s budget.
“For so many years the mining sector which has been a major revenue provider for the country is beginning to dwindle gradually because we are depleting our gold reserve and gold prices continue to fall and as a result, we continue to feel the impact of these on our economy. What did we do wrong? If we had planned and set up a future fund what it means is that you could still now be able to support the budget with that revenue.”
The lawmaker disclosed that only 30% of the revenue raked from oil is invested into the heritage fund with 70% used in supporting the budget ” and the finance minister has been given the right and mandate to determine the priority areas where the revenue from oil will be invested in. So if he thinks Free SHS is the priority area you have the right to invest the money into free SHS than depend on the Heritage Fund which has a different purpose”.
By: Offei-Akoto Ayeh/a1radioonline.com/Ghana
