<<Print>>

Legal luminary, Tsatsu Tsikata, has asked government to use broad-based consultations to find remedies to the country’s economic challenges.

According to him, the government can rely on revenue accrued from petroleum resources rather than loans from multilateral institutions that come with high-interest rates.

Speaking at a July 25, 2022 memorial lecture held in honour of late President John Evans Atta Mills, Tsikata called for cross-party consultations to find internal solutions to the country’s pressing challenges.

“Under the Petroleum Revenue Management Act, investments of the Ghana Petroleum Funds are also required to be made in a manner that insulates them from being spent in the annual budgets.

“In the midst of concerns about possible debt defaults and debates in Parliament about commercial loans, is it too much to ask that in the spirit of President Mills and in his honour, urgent, good faith, cross-party consultations are held to enable all our resource pools to be drawn on for the benefit of the people of Ghana?,” he quizzed.

Parliament on July 20, 2022 approved a $750 million loan agreement with Afriexim Bank which formed part of a $1 billion facility government was looking at using to pay for infrastructural projects.

The minority had earlier on refused to support the loan but backtracked with the reason that the country’s economy will collapse without it.

As part of efforts to avoid an economic collapse, government has approached the International Monetary Fund for a rescue programme.