• Government has not spent a dime out of 600 million cedis allocated for Agenda 111 project
• Deputy Finance Minister John Kumah has provided evidence to dispute reports that the amount has been spent
• The Minority in Parliament have threatened to recall the house for clarity on the issue
Deputy Finance Minister, John Kumah, has provided evidence to the effect that government has yet to pay out a dime from a 600 million cedi amount captured in the 2020 budget for the Agenda 111 project.
According to him, the furore around the said figure had to do with basic budgeting where monies released are supposed to be captured as such, noting that they will be subject later to audit and other accountability processes.
Kumah, speaking in an interview on Joy News channel, said contrary to claims by the Minority in Parliament, the full amount allocated so far remains intact in the accounts of the relevant state institution.
He provided a document from the Controller and Account General, which showed that as at August 19, 2020; the released funds were intact.
Addressing the issue of some 36 million the government admits had been appropriated, Kumah said that expenditure was done separately from the 600 million in question.
“When government makes an allocation and we make releases to the Bank of Ghana account of an entity, it will be captured as an expenditure in the budget but whether that entiuty has spent the mpney is another process that will detail the information.
“Government of Ghana makes allocations and in this case, the 600 million cedis was meant for Agenda 111, but here is the peculiar situation where the processes were not ready so what we did was to release it into that specific account.
Referring to the Controller’s document, he said: “As at 19th August from the Controller’s Single Treasury Account, there is still a balance of 600 milion, so what it means is that we have not touched this money.
“Those who were claiming that government has already wasted the money before cutting the sod, this is the evidence that as at 19th August, 2021,” he added.
An August 20 statement signed by Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, MP for Juaboso & Ranking Member on the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, posed four questions seeking better particulars from the Finance Ministry on the subject of the 600 million cedis.
The Minority tasked the Auditor-General as a matter of urgency to constitute an audit with reputable international firms leading to get to the bottom of the funds.
The threat to trigger a recall of the house was contained in the final paragraph which read: “We also wish to serve notice that, if the Auditor General fails to Act within 2 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.”