Akufo-Addo, Health Ministry Give Different Figures In Supposed Ghc 20 Billion COVID-19 Spending

It is still not clear exactly how much the Akufo-Addo government has so far spent on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, even after President Akufo Addo claimed during the State of the Nation Address that his government has spent over Ghc 17 Billion.

While the Ghc 17.7 billion price tag given by the President has come to many as inflated and padded by the Akufo Addo government described as one of the most corrupt in the history of the country, the Minority in Parliament has been pointing out that even that gargantuan figure is less than what the government’s own budget has been quoting.

Per budget quotations on COVID-19 spending from 2020, the government is supposed to have spent over Ghc 20 Billion.

Last week, National Democratic Congress MP for Juaboso and Ranking Member on the Health Committee, Hon. Kwabena Minta Akandoh, pointed out the discrepancies in the figures Akufo-Addo gave Parliament and the figures that budgets from the Finance Ministry has provided.

“In all data from the Ministry of Finance tells us that an amount of Ghc 17.7 billion has been spent on containing the pandemic since 2020” Akandoh pointed out. However, “this is inaccurate, the records available to this house (Parliament), per the budget statement of 2021 Page 274 of 2021 budget, the utilization with respect to COVID-19 is Ghc 18.19 billion.”

“….So we spent more than Ghc 18 Billion on COVID in 2020 alone, how can the president say that we have spent Ghc 17.7 billion on COVID since 2020?” he asked.

On page 335 of the budget, showed some Ghc2.6 billion was spent on COVID-19 from January to September 2021.

According to Akandoh, when GHC 2.6 billion is added to the  Ghc18.19 billion spent on COVID in 2020, there is no way it will amount to the GHC 17 billion the President was claiming.

“Mr. Speaker, if you put it together, unless the president is mathematically challenged, it can never be Ghc 17.7 billion,” Akandoh pointed out, lamenting that, “…the least that is expected of every leader is to be candid to your people.”

The limping mathematics that Akufo-Addo tried to bamboozle Ghanaians with is the latest in an accountability crisis that the government is facing over COVID-19 spending.

The government has not been forthcoming about how much it really has spent after initially asking Parliament for Ghc1.2 billion and then returning later to claim it had spent over Ghc 8 Billion on the pandemic.