Minority accuses government of hiding some debt with SSNIT

The Minority in Parliament has accused the ruling government of not being forthright with the nation’s debt stock, saying that government has managed to hide some of the debt stock through the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).

The minority New Patriotic Party flayed the Government for not informing Parliament about its failure to pay workers’ contributions amounting to GH₵ 914 million in December 2014, explaining that the House only got to know about it through the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) criteria performance on Ghana’s extended credit agreement.

Dr Mark Assibey-Yeboah, Deputy Ranking Member on Finance, told a press conference in Accra that Government at the end of 2014 was supposed to pay GH₵ 914 million to the SSNIT workers’ contribution.

Dr Assibey-Yeboah, who is also the MP for New Juaben South, said government however asked SSNIT to pay the GH₵914 million on its behalf, intending to repay later.

“The Government should have informed Parliament about the matter, but it did not,” the Minority said.

It also emerged from the review that the government at the end of December 2014, securitized its arrears to SSNIT to the tune of GH₵ 913 million.

“Parliament was not informed and has not been up to date. As a result of the behind-the-curtain securitization of the arrears, the fiscal deficit for 2014 has been revised upward from 9.4 per cent to 10.3 per cent of GDP. This means there have been double digit fiscal deficit for three back to back years, which has never been seen in this country,” Dr Assibey-Yeboah said.

The Minority cautioned the Government that it would use “all parliamentary and legal options available to ensure that the laws of the country (concerning financial deals) are respected.”

Source: GNA