The Deputy Minority Leader, James Klutse Avedzi believes using the Heritage Fund component in the Petroleum Management Act to fund some policies, only six years after it was set up, could compromise the fund.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) government has hinted of reviewing the Petroleum Management Act to allow for the use of the Heritage Fund to finance its ambitious Free Senior High School (SHS) policy.
The Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, at a forum in Accra on Tuesday said the Heritage Fund, which receives nine percent of the country’s annual petroleum revenue, will be used to sustain the program.
The fund was set up to support the country’s future generations when the oil reserves are depleted. Nine percent of the country’s annual petroleum revenue is paid into the fund.
However similar proposals were made by the previous National Democratic Congress administration and fiercely opposed by the NPP as noted by the Deputy Minority Leader, James Klutse Avedzi spoke on the Citi Breakfast Show.
“This is a government that says it has the men. This is a government that says it has the solution. Not knowing their mind was on the Heritage Fund without telling Ghanaians that when they come to power, all promises were going to fall on the fund that has been built up for the following generations. So I am completely confused about what it is. I don’t think that it is a proper thing because when the General Secretary of the NDC said we should us that fund, they were the same people that were up in arms against that proposal.”
Mr. Avedzi wondered further if the NPP were against the NDC’s proposal to use the Heritage Fund because they held the fund “as their hope in fulfilling their campaign promises. That was why they were against it.”
“You are in power for less than two months and you are falling on the fund that has been put together for the future generations which was done by the NDC government who was thinking about this government, but you want to destroy it as this early stage.”
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
