A member of the Parliament’s Finance Committee Afenyo Marking is demanding the whereabouts of GH¢38m which was part of the GH¢165m disbursed into the UBA account of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) by the Finance Ministry.
He noted that when the Finance Minister appeared before the committee, he said GH¢165 million has been given to SADA for various projects. But when the Chief Executive of SADA appeared before it, he said he has only received GH¢128 million.
Mr Afenyo Markins who is also the Member of Parliament for Effutu is therefore wondering the whereabouts of the difference of GH¢38 million.
He told Evans Mensah on Joy FM’s Top Story he will file an urgent question in parliament to get the Finance Minister to account for the money when parliament resumed, that is, if the Finance Ministry or authorities at SADA fail to provide an appropriate answer on the GH¢38 million.
“Ghanaians need to know. All of us need to know where the GH¢38 million has gone. Where did it go to? In which account was it disbursed?”
Meanwhile, Executive Director of Ghana Integrity Initiative Vitus Azeem has raised eyebrows over the activities of SADA.
Even though he admitted on Top Story that the anti-graft body has no evidence, he said they are suspicious about how the Authority is being managed.
GII issued a statement today challenging SADA for the way it’s managed several projects, raising issues of possible political interests as a key reason the Authority is failing in the execution of key poverty alleviation projects.
The anti-graft body points to a 200 borehole project budgeted to cost GH¢20,000 for the drilling of each borehole. It says its investigations have revealed that the project has stalled with the contractor indicating he will only manage to build 70 boreholes at the same cost.
It is therefore calling for the establishment of a constitutional commission of enquiry to probe the affairs of SADA.