Government intends to reduce the country’s infrastructure gap by using Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) to drive sizeable but economically viable infrastructure projects to conclusion.
Mr Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance, said it would also create additional fiscal space for the Government to operate in.
Mr Ofori-Atta said this when he presented the 2021 Mid-year fiscal policy review of the budget statement and economic policy of the government to Parliament on Thursday.
The GIIF was established to mobilise, manage, coordinate and provide financial resources for investment in infrastructure projects and ease the burden of quasi-public debt on our budget.
He said over the last decade, the country had witnessed an increasing trend where sovereign Funds had been deployed as catalysts for growth and development in emerging markets such as Asia and the Middle East.
The Minister said that was beginning to be adopted in Africa, and that the Government intended to allow GIIF to increasingly play a similar role for Ghana.
“As such, we have nominated GIIF as the vehicle to be used to restructure and refinance expensive debt of the Independent Power Producers in the energy sector as well as take equity positions in some cases to help reduce the fiscal burden of overcapacity charges we have been left with,” he said.
Mr Ofori-Atta said negotiations with several of the independent power producers were in their final stages.
He said Government also intended to use GIIF as a vehicle, under the GhanaCARES programme to drive the country’s structural transformation through funding for critical infrastructure such as Agenda 111, quality and affordable housing, improved rail and road networks and ICT infrastructure.
The Minister said the government had, therefore, revised the earmarked funds Act to allow a 20 per cent increase in the allocation of Annual Budget Funding Amounts capex to GIIF for the funding of Agenda 111 and other development expenditures.
GNA
