Govt has not shown sufficient commitment for ‘Big Push’ implementation – Minority

The Minority Caucus in Parliament has criticised the ruling National Dem­ocratic Congress government of not showing enough commitment towards implementing its US$10 billion strategic infrastructure de­velopment, otherwise known as the “Big Push”.

Addressing the media in Parlia­ment in Accra on its True Budget Statement, Mr Kojo Oppong Nk­rumah, the Member of Parliament for Ofoase Ayirebi and former Information Minister, said the Government had failed in making the necessary budget allocations to give meaning to its planned infra­structure programme.

He said infrastructure invest­ments were known to be pivotal towards opening the space for growth and jobs creation in the economy.

“Unfortunately, however, the “Big Push” programme, government has failed in making the necessary bud­get allocations to give meaning to its planned infrastructure programme,” he stated.

“Out of the expected US$2.5bil­lion to kick start the programme this year, the government has announced that it can only make available $800m (less than 1 billion). In effect, the “Big Push” itself needs a push if anything meaningful will happen in infrastructure,” he added.

The lawmaker also expressed worry about the Agenda 111 projects, which many districts were looking forward to, noting that, it appeared the programme was head­ing to a halt.

“The Budget allocations for its continuation appear illusive. The dedicated source of funding of the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF Health), which was receiving funds from the Capex allo­cation of Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) is now constrained as the government signalled it will be cutting funding to GIIF,” he said.

More so, he stressed, there was no clear alternative financing source identified in the budget to fund the project.

“This is truly worrying. Not only is it contrary to the NDC’s promise to health workers that it will contin­ue the projects, abandoning them or giving them out as franchises will jeorpadise the efforts at universal health coverage.

“The millions of citizens in remote districts who are looking forward to their lives being saved from this healthcare intervention are now at risk,” Mr Oppong Nkrumah observed.

“Mr President, in the name of God, please do not abandon them for political reasons,” he added.

—GNA