Minority in Parliament has described as bizarre, government’s explanation on how GH¢600 million was set aside for Agenda 111.
This comes after the Ministry of Finance denied claims by the Minority in Parliament that the government had already spent GH¢636 million on Agenda 111 even before it was launched on Tuesday, August 17, 2021.
In a press release issued by the Public Relations Unit, the Ministry admitted that in 2020, an amount of GH¢600 million was released into the Health Infrastructure Account at Bank of Ghana (BoG) to support the implementation of the District and Regional Hospitals Projects.
The Finance Ministry said contrary to the claims “the said amount had been released into the project account at the BOG but not utilised yet. Project commencement has just begun. So far, only GH¢36million has been released as part of pre-construction mobilisation,” the statement, dated August, 19, explained.
However, the Parliamentarians of the NDC, led by Ranking Member on Parliament’s Health Committee, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, said the explanations on the whereabouts of the money lead to a conclusion that the government is hiding the truth about the GH₵600 million expenditure.
“We find the explanations on the GH₵600million expenditure rather bizarre, to say the least. The statement is alarming in that, it raises even more concerns about the chain of custody of the GH₵600 million allocated for AGENDA 111 projects. From all the contradictions, it may be that the GH₵600 million is missing,” part of the statement read.
Mr Akandoh raised five questions about the expenditure including when the GHC600 million was allocated to Agenda 111, which agency of government is implementing Agenda 111? And what has been the chain of custody of the funds since they left the Consolidated Accounts at the BoG?
To ascertain the accuracy of the Finance Ministry’s statement, he called on the Auditor General to constitute an audit team, involving the services of a reputable international Audit Firm, to audit the processes leading to the supposed transfer and the expenditure of the GH₵600 million.
“We also wish to serve notice that, if the Auditor General fails to Act within two weeks, we will have no option than to start the processes of collecting enough signatures from Members of Parliament to trigger a recall of Parliament so that a committee of Parliament can investigate the Missing GH₵600 million from the consolidated fund.”
Below is the full statement:
