By Julian Owusu-Abedi
Former Finance Minister Seth Emmanuel Terkper held a special press briefing with business news reporters over the weekend to forcefully rebut what he described as the current government’s false claims about the erstwhile NDC government leaving behind a terrible economy.
With a vivid graphic presentation of figures and data spanning both administrations, Mr. Terkper illustrated how his government(NDC) clearly left a healthy and sound economy rather than what their political opponents in government today profess.
Speaking with particular reference to the petroleum revenue alone, the former Finance Minister demonstrated that with just one Oil Field(Jubilee) which was producing just about seventy thousand barrels a day with corresponding revenue component of about $165 million in eight years under both Mills/Mahama, the NDC government was able to do more with little in terms of supporting the Annual Budget Fund Amount(ABFA), establishing the Heritage Fund with a seed capital of about $14.4 million and the Stabilization Fund with seed capital of about $54.9 million as well as the establishment of the Sinking Fund all of which was achieved out of prudent management of the little oil receipts.
He said, the NDC government also established the Energy Sector Levy Act(ESLA) mainly to address the huge debt burden and operational challenges facing State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in the Energy Sector, support power generation and power supply sustainability.
”The debt stock of these SOEs were having ripple effects on the Banks so in our time we decided to use the ESLA to offset some of these debts owed the SOEs so that they can in turn pay contractors who would have also paid their bankers to ease the strain and the drain on these Banks. We had projected five years as of that time to finish off paying all the debts owed these SOEs by which time the Banks would been given a new lease of life so that there will be no bank closures and job losses. So if you come and do big bum with ESLA, take responsibility, don’t say somebody left a terrible economy”, he opined.
Mr. Terkper stated that by this account there is no way any government could truthfully claim it inherited an ailing or terrible economy.
Meanwhile, in less than four years and with the benefit of two new extra oil fields (TEN & Sankofa) making three in all and producing about 200 thousand barrels per day with it’s corresponding revenue of about $215 million in just over the last three and half years, it’s clear that the ruling government have benefited more than any other and yet very little to show for what they have received so far. In fact the NPP government have never deposited a cedi into the Stabilization Fund since they came into office and yet have rather proceeded to depleted all the funds that was left for Stabilization during the peak of the COVID-19, Mr. Terkper stressed.
