{"id":331841,"date":"2017-06-27T11:39:38","date_gmt":"2017-06-27T11:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=331841"},"modified":"2017-06-27T11:39:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-27T11:39:38","slug":"view-chinese-aid-with-cautious-optimism-dr-manteaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/06\/view-chinese-aid-with-cautious-optimism-dr-manteaw\/","title":{"rendered":"View Chinese aid with ‘cautious optimism’ – Dr. Manteaw"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Director of the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEDC), Dr. Steve Manteaw wants\u00a0Ghana to be \u201ccautiously optimistic\u201d with China’s intention to\u00a0commit to $15 billion into Ghana’s economy.<\/p>\n
Dr. Manteaw reminded that, there are as yet undisclosed conditions that are tied to the money, making the overall deal hard to assess at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether or not we will be able to access what has been said will be dependent on our ability to meet the conditions or the triggers for the release of these funds… we may need to have the full benefit of what the conditions are to be able to assess,\u201d he said on the Citi Breakfast Show<\/strong>.<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”JMHFKqY5W7ksERvUUkhAz632TwtCurbB”]After a four-day working trip to China, the Vice President announced that, China had committed $15 billion worth of investment to Ghana, anchored on a new financing model designed by Ghana’s Economic Management Team.<\/p>\n The deals will leverage heavily on Ghana\u2019s untapped natural resources such as bauxite and iron ore, according to Dr.\u00a0Bawumia.<\/p>\n But Dr. Manteaw explained that, this basically meant the government was going to collateralize national resources and use them “as a guarantee for profiteering.”<\/p>\n The issue with this, he said, is that the Chinese will essentially be bypassing laws that govern the exploration of some of these natural resources.<\/p>\n \u201cIt kind of substitutes the current arrangement for allocating exploitation rights of the natural resource sector so that if the law says you have to go through a competitive bidding process or you have to go through a laid down procedure to be assigned exploitation rights for natural resources, all those arrangements are set aside because contracts with the Chinese then take precedence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, that is not a very efficient way of resource allocation because you are able to overlook some of the due diligence processes that will be normally undertaken under the guidance of the regulator,\u201d\u00a0Dr. Manteaw said.<\/p>\n ‘China presents useful openings’<\/strong><\/p>\n Also commenting on the developments with China, the Head of the Legon Centre for Asian Studies, Dr Lloyd Amoah, said Ghana would be fine as long as the government does its homework well.<\/p>\n He said Ghana needed overcome the scepticism and open up “to the realisation that China presents useful openings for the national transformational agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n