Gov’t using oil revenue to fund Big Push agenda – Ato Forson

Finance Minister, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, says the government is channeling petroleum revenues into major infrastructure projects under the Big Push agenda.

Addressing the Ishmael Yamson & Associates Business Roundtable on Thursday, Dr. Forson said the Mahama administration had changed the use of oil revenues to prioritise large-scale infrastructure development, particularly road projects.

“Last year, we introduced the Big Push. The focus of the Big Push is to ensure that our infrastructure receives attention,” he stated.

According to him, the government has allocated about GH¢4.5 billion for road infrastructure this year as part of efforts to modernise the country’s transport network.

“We’ve said that use Ghana’s oil revenue only for infrastructure use. Big ticket infrastructure,” Dr. Forson said.

He explained that previous governments spread petroleum revenues across several recurrent expenditures, which he described as inefficient.

“In the past the oil revenue accrued to the budget was shared so thin. We used to use some to buy newspapers. We used to use some to buy air tickets,” he stated.

Dr. Forson disclosed that the government had also redirected mineral royalties toward infrastructure financing after changes were made to the use of funds previously allocated to the Minerals Income Investment Fund.

“What I did was simple. You can’t use state money to buy my own bills,” he said.

He indicated that proceeds from petroleum revenue and mineral royalties had been combined to support the proposed Accra-Kumasi Expressway project.

“The two put together is a billion dollars. That is what we are using to build the Accra-Kumasi Expressway,” he noted.

The Finance Minister said the government expects to generate an additional $1.5 billion this year, bringing the total available resources for the project to about $2.5 billion over two years.

“Granted, the Accra-Kumasi Expressway is going to cost us 4 billion dollars. We’ll fund it without borrowing,” he stated.

Dr. Forson further stressed that the government had halted what he described as unnecessary spending on travel and conferences in order to focus resources on strategic national projects.

“And so all of that, we’ve stopped it, and we are targeting major infrastructure,” he added.