Member of Parliament for Ofoase-Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, is calling for transparency and strict adherence to the approved purpose of a newly secured $360 million World Bank facility intended to support Ghana’s 2025 budget.
The loan, which Parliament approved on July 1, 2025, was initially presented as a crucial intervention to help the government settle outstanding payments to contractors. However, according to Oppong Nkrumah, there are emerging discrepancies between what was agreed upon at the Cabinet level and the details now being presented in Parliament.
In a video posted on his official Facebook page on July 2, 2025, the former Minister of Work and Housing passionately highlighted these concerns during parliamentary deliberations.
“Mr Speaker, they told Cabinet that the full amount of the $360 million from the DPO2 will be used to finance part of this $13 billion payment to contractors. It wasn’t going to be used for goods and services,” he emphasized.
Oppong Nkrumah pointed out that when the government presented the facility to Parliament, they suddenly introduced new areas of expenditure which had not been part of the Cabinet’s original approval. He cited pages from the official Parliamentary Memorandum to back his claims.
“Now that they got Cabinet approval, when they came to Parliament, they now said they are going to use the money to improve private investment and foreign direct investment, to minimise fiscal burden caused by losses in the power sector,” he said, expressing worry about the shifting narrative.
The Ofoase-Ayirebi MP further reminded Parliament of the multiple justifications previously provided by the government for levies and amendments related to the power sector, including the controversial 8% fuel levy.
“When they introduced the 8% levy on fuel, they told us that power sector issues needed that money. When they came to Parliament asking us to amend the energy sector levy before Parliament rose the last time, they told us power issues,” he recalled.
According to him, the current attempt to expand the use of the funds to cover areas such as social safety nets, gender equity, and poverty reduction deviates from the original agreement.
“If you now come to add to it issues of social safety net, gender equity, extreme poverty reduction, you are deviating from the original purpose for which this $360 million facility was negotiated,” he warned.
Oppong Nkrumah urged his colleagues across the political divide to ensure that the government is held accountable and that the funds are strictly utilized in line with the original Cabinet-approved purpose.
