The Minority in Parliament is alleging that the New Patriotic Party government illegally paid $10 million to a private audit firm to probe cocoa road projects.<\/p>\n
Eric Opoku, Ranking Member on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs made the "},"modified":"2019-07-26T07:08:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-26T07:08:00","slug":"govt-illegally-spent-10m-on-cocoa-roads-audit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/07\/26\/govt-illegally-spent-10m-on-cocoa-roads-audit\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov’t illegally spent $10m on cocoa roads audit"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
The Minority in Parliament is alleging that the New Patriotic Party government illegally paid $10 million to a private audit firm to probe cocoa road projects.<\/p>\n
Eric Opoku, Ranking Member on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs made the allegation at a press conference held on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\n\u201c\u2026What the Akufo-Addo government has succeeded in doing is to waste millions of the tax payer\u2019s money on illegally procured audits not sanctioned by the Auditor General. We are aware that $10 million has been paid to one of such illegally procured private audit firms owned by a member of Akufo-Addo\u2019s Council of State and at the right time, we shall make the chilling details available to the Ghanaian people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The Akufo-Addo administration suspended cocoa road projects in 2017 for an audit over corruption concerns.<\/p>\n
The Mahama administration was among other things, accused of awarding over 230 different road contracts to the tune of GHc3.5 billion under the project, to the detriment of COCOBOD\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n
The government has since lifted the suspension and has said contractors are being supplied funds to resume work on various projects.<\/p>\n
At the press conference, the Minority questioned why \u201cafter almost three years in government, not a single official of the erstwhile Mahama administration or a single contractor has been indicted for any inflated, fraudulent or ghost cocoa road project.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Minority also warned that it shall hold the COCOBOD CEO \u201cresponsible for any financial loss in the area of cocoa roads in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
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COCOBOD justifies audit<\/strong><\/p>\n
In response to the allegations, Fifi Boafo, a Communications Manager at COCOBOD, while speaking on Eyewitness News<\/strong> justified the need for the audit of the cocoa roads.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cFor example, if a road was initially set to cost about $17 million but ballooned to about $100 million and you take over as management, you won\u2019t want to just go ahead without asking questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n