Ghana Lawmakers Approve $3 Billion China Infrastructure Loan After Debate

**liongod** · 03-04-2012, 06:14 PM

Chinese taking control??? comments?

Ghana Lawmakers Approve $3 Billion China Infrastructure Loan After Debate

By Ekow Dontoh - Aug 26, 2011 9:31 AM PT
Ghanaian lawmakers approved a $3 billion loan, the biggest in the country’s history, from the China Development Bank after four hours of debate today, said Edward Doe Adjaho, first deputy speaker of Parliament.
Opposition politicians, headed by Minority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, abstained from the vote in the capital, Accra.
“Clearly there are issues not yet clarified in the agreement,” Kyei Mensah Bonsu, a member of the opposition New Patriotic Party, said in an interview after the vote. There are “issues of cost, double payments, and in some cases, due diligence had not been done,” he said, without giving details.
The money was pledged to Ghana, which became Africa’s newest oil exporter in December, following a trip by President John Atta Mills to China in September. He signed concessionary loan deals worth $10.4 billion during that trip, the government said.
Ghana plans to spend $800 million of the funds on projects to develop a natural gas industry in the Western region, where the Jubilee oil field that began production last year is located, George Sipa Yankey, chief executive officer of the Ghana National Gas Co., said in an interview Aug. 18. The funds will also be used to construct a railway, a fishing harbor and roads, among other projects.
Lawmakers from the ruling National Democratic Congress party, which has a majority in Parliament, were enough to pass the measure.
“Indeed this is a victory for development and victory for democracy,” said Information Minister John Tia, a member of the NDC. “The opposition had their say and it was all factored into the deliberations so it’s all good,” he said in an interview after the vote.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ekow Dontoh in Accra at edontoh@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Emily Bowers at ebowers1@bloomberg.net.

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