The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the Akufo-Addo led-government of wasting over $6million on illegal private investigative firms to audit state institutions which are already being investigated by the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO).
Addressing a press conference in Accra, Tuesday, the General Secretary of the party, Johnson Asiedu Nketia described the move as wanton misuse of state funds.
He claims that the Board Chairman of the Ghana Audit Service, Prof. Edward Duah Agyemang was made to occupy that position to do a hatchet job for the government.
Asiedu Nketia urged President Akufo Addo to justify the parallel investigations which he described as squandering of the tax payers hard earned monies.
“The NDC has credible information that an amount of at least $6.8million has so far being paid by the NPP government under President Akufo-Addo’s watch to these private firms to carry out work that’s already being done or has been completed by state agencies.
He added, “the taxpayers’ money is being spent on state agencies like the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO), the Special Prosecutor’s Office, the Auditor General’s Department and the Attorney General’s. Any of these [institutions] could have carried out these audits.”
Asiedu Nketia disclosed that the party is reliably informed by some former appointees that while being investigated by EOCO, they’ve also received letters from some of these private investigative firms to answer the same questions they have already answered at EOCO.
The NDC’s accusation comes on the back of the revelation of some procurement breaches amounting to a whopping US$137,861,127.15 at Ghana National Gas Company during the erstwhile John Mahama administration by a private firm Morrison and Associates.
The government commissioned Morrison and Associates’ forensic audit of Ghana Gas which further detected established that helicopters purchased from China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation (CATIC) by Ghana Gas “have never been used for purpose of its purchase.”
Following from that, a whopping amount of $54,800,000 has been expended as “financial loss to the state.”
It added: “Abnitio training cost not fully utilized for its intended purpose” amounts to US$300,000, making a total of US$61,058,366.756.