The controversy over the suspended “Agyapa” Gold Royalties deal will never go away anytime soon, as the National Democratic Congress has today taken issue with the USD$12 million said to have been spent on the botched arrangement.
At a recent appearance before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, CEO of the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF), Edward Nana Yaw Koranteng, disclosed that the Agyapa royalties deal, which is currently in abeyance, has already cost the taxpayer some $12 million.
However, addressing the media at a press conference earlier, the National Communication Officer of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi, argued that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government had occasioned a financial loss to the state by making these payments. He stated that Ghanaians were taken aback by the government’s decision to spend a whopping $12 million on the abandoned Agyapa deal.
The NDC enumerated several critical and pressing national needs that the government could have addressed using the said amount, including payments for the treatment of kidney patients some of whom died as a result of the recent closure of the Renal Dialysis Unit at Korle Bu over the government’s indebtedness.
The party again argued that these payments come at a time the government has failed to procure textbooks for basic schools, five years after introducing a new curriculum, while National Service Personnel have also not received their allowances for several months.
The NDC alleges that certain “selfish and greedy” persons in the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government distributed the disclosed $12 million payments among themselves under the guise of the failed “Agyapa” royalties arrangement, at a time young people under the NABCO program have been sent home without any employment.
The party has therefore vowed to investigate and retrieve all payments made in the name of the collapsed Agyapa Royalties deal and other similar arrangements, should the NDC and John Mahama emerge victorious in the 2024 General Elections.
Source: myjoyonline.com
