Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu has said his side is willing to approve only $750m out of the $1bn syndicated loan agreement the government has presented to the House.

He said this is subject to the provision of relevant details regarding the agreement.

The Tamale South MP in an interview with JoyNews on Tuesday noted that although government needs the loan facility urgently, it must provide more clarity on the deal before the Minority Group can consent to its approval.

“I know that they are in dying need of resources for our import cover and therefore if they provide further and better particulars on the $750m, we are open and amenable to getting that approved as soon as practicable,” he stated.

According to him, the Finance Ministry must withdraw the remaining $250m loan agreement and renegotiate it because the Minority finds the terms of the agreement ‘unacceptable’.

“The $250m request is expensive and we do not find that acceptable. How can you be borrowing $250m out of which $43m goes to payment of premium or insurance? So we have asked the Ministry of Finance to renegotiate as we do not find the terms acceptable,” he added.

“The Minister of Finance, in the memorandum that he submitted to Parliament, only indicated Budget support. So we needed to know which areas of the Budget will that money support? Is it the road sector, health sector, education sector or other social interventions? We need to know,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the Finance Committee in Parliament is expected to meet on Tuesday to decide on the way forward with the loan agreement.

The Finance Ministry is seeking Parliament’s approval for a 750 million dollar loan facility agreement between AfreximBank and a 250 million dollar loan agreement from a syndication of banks to finance Capital and Growth-related expenditures in the 2022 Budget.

The loan agreement was presented before the House last Friday but the Minority rejected it. They described the facility as “terrible” and “inimical”.