$50,000 car loans for MPs
The President John Evans Atta Mills has given approval for a $50,000 car loan for Parliamentarians.
The move is to facilitate the work of MPs some of whom have to commute long distances to their various constituencies and back to Accra weekly.
Even though approval for the loans has received presidential assent, contractual details are yet to be firmed up.
Some of the MP’s who confirmed the news to Joy FM’s Parliamentary correspondent Araba Coomson, said the House is in preliminary discussions with some private banks to make the loans available to the MP’s.
Far from being excited, some Parliamentarians expressed reservations over the erroneous impression from the public that the loans are ‘free lunch’.
They argued the loans are exactly what they are, loans, to be paid back in monthly installments for four years, by which time their tenure of office in parliament would have come to an end.
The ex-gratia payable to the MP’s at the end of their four year tenure would also be used as a guarantee for the procurement of the loans.
Similar policy under the erstwhile New Patriotic Party government which made available $20,000 for MPs generated heated public discontent for MPs.
To allay the fears of the public on the issue, Majority leader, Alban Bagbin had proposed early on for the state to provide official cars to MPs as is the case with other public officials.
But that idea appears not to have sat well with the president. His approval might just provoke yet another controversy but the MPs have called for truce source: jfm
loans OR nO LOAN?
Aid as it is called today is the same as foreign Exchange. British Council, USAID, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Saatchi and saatchi, are the few agencies running Ghana today.
Take for example, during the NPP administration - Ghana at 50. Then govenment was giving a $20 million loan by IMF to spend on only European and US cars, which they did, and this loan is to be paid back with huge interest. After the festival the political groups (all the political party members) conspire and split the cars among themselves, leaven the tax paying Ghanaian to take up the dept incured.
Another scenario occured when GT (ghana Telecom) was up for sale. All the MP's got a share. Most Ghanaians were against it. Yet when they went to parliament to vote, the CPP leader Ndoum boycotted the prociding leaving his opponent with a veto power. The joke was if he had voted GT's privitasation wouldn't have gone through but since he had received a share in the company he and his party members left the proceedings.
Ladies and Gentlemen whether we like it or not Ghana is now officially a CAPITALIST STATE. This began under JJ Rawlings continued by Kufour and now Mills. So when people are fighting over NPP and NDC, they are really being played. Danqua-Busia ideology or Neolibralism, Free Market, Globalisation or whatever you want to call it, its all CAPITALISM.
The system now in place in Ghana is called PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION. According to Marx, the whole purpose of primitive accumulation is to privatise the means of production (industries, farms etc), so that the exploiting owners (CEO) can make money from the surplus labour (unemployed) of those who, lacking other means, must work for them (Cheap Labour).
Reply to this