Lead partner of tax firm, PFM Tax Africa, Seth Emmanuel Terpker, has sought to imply that the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) mantra of having been bequeathed a weak economy is indicative of how unappreciative the incumbent NPP government is.
Mr Terkper who doubles as a Finance Minister under the erstwhile John Mahama administration, has said the National Democratic Congress (NDC) contrary to popular assertions by the NPP, left the latter in a better position to manage the now debt-burdened economy.
“This is to deflate the false claims of poor legacy at January 2017 with facts and figures while restating that the immediate-past government put the present one in a position to manage the economy better than the negative and worrisome indicators and trends that are worse than a challenging end-2016,” said Mr Terkper in an article written to prove his assertion that a stronger and not a weaker economy was bequeathed to the NPP.
The former Finance Minister argues that, the incumbent government in trumpeting that its predecessor left a weak economy at end-2016, deliberately ignores the legacy of opportunities created by the NDC.
One of such legacy opportunities the John Mahama administration bequeathed to the NPP, Mr Terkper notes, is the enormous investments in the TEN and Sankofa oil fields that started to generate revenues at the start of President Akufo-Addo’s administration.
Further asserting that, the additional two oil fields, in just 3 years have generated more revenues for President Akufo-Addo than combined oil revenues generated under the Mills/Mahama administrations.
“The obvious Mahama legacy is the two (TEN and Sankofa) additional petroleum fields that started to generate revenues at the start of HE Nana Addo’s administration in 2017. It has become the beneficiary of over half of the total oil revenues in three (3) years, more than the combined HE Mills/Mahama inflows for six (6) years. And these are Mahama investment outcomes, while navigating several crises,” he stated.
According to him, the Akufo-Addo-led administration has earned in terms of oil revenue generation a total of Ghs 214 billion in 3 years as against a combined total of Ghs 165 billion oil revenues under both the Mills/Mahama administration – Mahama had Ghs 115 billion and Mills had Ghs 50 billion.
Table 1 shows the revenues from the Jubilee, TEN and Sankofa petroleum fields to the budget, including allocations to the statutory or sovereign wealth funds (SWFS) under the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA).
“In addition to Jubilee from 2011, the current government inherited the entire output and revenues from Sankofa/TEN—with Mills/Mahama investments in all 3 fields while Nana Addo continues to reap the benefits. Table 2/Figures 1/2 show two 100% Sankofa/TEN bars for Nana Addo and zero (0%) for Mills and Mahama.”
“From the total of US$380 million since 2011, Nana Addo got US$214.2m (56.4%) in three-and-half (3.5) years compared to US$50.5m (13.3%) in one-and-half (1.5) years for Mills and Ghc115m (30.3%) for Mahama in (4) years. A total of US$113.3m from Sankofa (US$37.2m) and TEN (US$ 76.1m) went to only Nana Addo, with more flows expected to end-2020 to cement the unacknowledged gratuity,” he stated in his new article.
Table 2: Share of petroleum revenues from 2011
Mr Terkper making further arguments, stated that the Akufo-Addo led administration has had the highest allocation of oil revenues to the budget and Sovereign Wealth Funds.
He posits that the Akufo-Addo-led administration has had a total of Ghs 11.5 billion of oil revenue to the budget as compared to the Mahama-led and Mills-led administrations which had only Ghs 7.3 billion and Ghs 1.7 billion respectively.
In concluding his article, Mr Terkper noted that the claims of inheriting a poor economy by the NPP from the perspective of oil revenues alone is false.
“It is obvious from these data and explanation that the claims of inheriting a poor economy from the perspective of oil revenues is false. The distortions by the NPP is to keep the lid on the consequences of an ambitious “consumption-based” economic agenda that is no longer convincing politically,” he intimated.
