Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Juaboso has accused the government of evading accountability on the COVID-19 funds.
According to the lawmaker, the government is yet to account for the $430 million it accessed during the height of the pandemic.
Addressing the press on Tuesday, the Juaboso MP stated that the financial support received by government in the fight against the Covid-19 does not match the expenses captured in the 2021 budget.
“We on the Minority side have filed a private member motion to constitute a bipartisan probe into the entire receipt and expenditure of Covid-19. We think it has never been transparent. There’s one thing indicating what you have received and properly accounting for what you have received, and we think that there hasn’t been proper accountability with regards to Covid-19.”
“There are a lot of issues and the remarks by the Country Director is just one out of the many. We have received not less than 560 million US dollars. We have combed through the 2021 Budget and the 2022 Budget. If what the Director said is anything to go by, then we have a serious problem at hand. Because the money received so far, doesn’t tally with what has been indicated by the country Director. So we think that there should be a bipartisan probe to investigate the entire expenditure so that we bring this issue to its logical conclusion”, Mintah Akandoh said.Ken Ofori-Atta
“He also added that, “we have heard issues about spending about 32 million Ghana Cedis on meetings. We have seen issues about spending 600 million Ghana cedis on Agenda 111 in 2020 before even the grounds were broken for the constructions of the Agenda 111. So these are serious issues that I think we must look into. As if that was not enough, he further indicated that, that amount of money was given to Ghana to sensitize the people of Ghana on Covid-19; to educate the people of Ghana on Covid-19.
“Your guess is as good as mine. Some of you had to give free slots to sensitize the people of this country, without taking a dime from Ghana government. So what did they use the money for? This is just a tip of the iceberg. So I think that, as far as Covid-19 receipt and expenditure are concerned, there’s more to it than we are hearing”.
According to him, even though 130 million dollars has been accounted for in the budget, there’s an outstanding 430 million dollars left to be accounted for. He, therefore, revealed the Minority’s decision to investigate the matter.
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