Election Nerve CentreHeadlinePolitics

Calls for audit of COVID-19 spending are in “indecent” haste

Pius Enam Hadzide accuses the NDC of making mischief by demanding an Audit Service inquiry into government spending on COVID-19 and urges the Auditor General to remain neutral

Deputy Information Minister Pius Enam Hadzide says it’s early days yet for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to demand an Audit Service inquiry into the government’s spending on the fight against COVID-19.

According to him, initiatives under the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme (CAP) have not come under their logical conclusion for any proper accounts to be made.

Speaking on Citi FM’s Eyewitness News, Hadzide said that the NDC’s request is ill-motivated.

“I believe that the NDC Minority appears to be [behaving] in an indecent way and I find their request premature and ill-motivated.

“The fact that they are misdirecting their so-called request will be enough justification for my position that, if the NDC honestly and truthfully wants the Auditor to look into this matter, the way to the Auditor General is not by way of a press conference. They would have notified the Auditor General in a proper manner, but they didn’t do that.

“The motive is to give a dog a bad name and hang it because they are worried that the people of Ghana have come to the conclusion that the president’s response and management of COVID-19 are excellent, such that it will become an issue for Election 2020,” he said.

The moment to account?

Hadzide said that the government will respond at the appropriate time to the questions raised by the NDC when all the plans under the CAP have been rolled out successfully.

“The confused and ill-motivated press conference by the NDC will be properly responded to . . . [I]f it’s a matter that is prepared, the proper time for real accountability will be [down to] us.

“This is a government that is open and accountable and does not hide from the people of Ghana but approaches them with the right processes. So . . . CAP is a package, but what our colleagues in the NDC are inviting us to do is to lift specific items in the package and deal with them because, in their view, work is completed on that matter.

“But are we sure work is completed? There is a structured approach for accounting for public money. So assuming that there is lockdown next week, are we going to come back and account for that money?”

Request for probe

The NDC is demanding that the Auditor General undertake a special audit of the GHC280.3 million allocated by the government for provision of food, water and sanitation under the CAP programme.

The ranking member of Parliament’s finance committee, Cassiel Ato Forson, said the media must demand an audit and hold the government to account for huge financial resources entrusted into its hands during the COVID-19 period. In Forson’s view, the CAP programme is distinguished by the “unprecedented levels of profligacy, waste and corruption Ghanaians have witnessed under the Akufo-Addo government in the last three and a half years”.

Pius Hadzide also accused the NDC of meddling in the work of the Audit Service and suggested that the NDC finds it easy to do so. He called on the Auditor General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo, to distance himself from the NDC’s activities.

“I think that the Auditor General himself must probably disallow the attitude and penchant of the NDC. I do not want to believe that the NDC wants to interfere in the work of the Auditor General.

“If the Auditor General and the people of Ghana do not strongly discourage the NDC and speak against this development, a rather unfortunate impression will be created that the NDC is working to get the Auditor General to work at their whims and caprices. That will be a dangerous impression to create about the Auditor General. That will create the impression that the Auditor General is at the beck and call of the NDC,” the deputy minister said.

CAP budget

On 8 April 2020, the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, presented the government’s Coronavirus Alleviation Programme to Parliament’s finance committee.

In his presentation, Ofori-Atta said that the government would spend GHC1.2 billion on the CAP to cushion Ghanaians against the socio-economic impact of the coronavirus disease.

The breakdown of the GHC1.2 billion included an allocation of GHC40 million for provision of food packages and hot meals and another allocation of GHC40 million to the Ghana Buffer Stock Company for dry food to support vulnerable communities in lockdown areas.

A further GHC200 million was allocated to water and sanitation, including the mobilisation of all publicly and privately owned water tankers to ensure water supply to all vulnerable communities.

In total, the three allocations come to GHC280.3 million.

Via
citinnewsroom.com
Source
Nii Larte Lartey
Show More

Related Articles

Back to top button

Adblock Detected

ALLOW OUR ADS