Dubious Ofori-Atta Causes Ghc10billion COVID-19 Fund To Disappear …Fails To Account, Probe Looms.

Some Ghc10billion out of a total of Ghc22billion that the Akufo-Addo government claims it spent on COVID-19 mysteriously vanished from the records when Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, finally faced Parliament to account for the COVID-19 money.

A financial scandal-prone Ofori-Atta had been challenged for his crooked reporting that reversed his earlier report in 2021 that the country had spent Ghc18.1 billion on COVID in 2020.

However, according to the latest report by selfsame Ofori-Atta when he appeared before Parliament this week, he claimed Ghana had spent Ghc12.2billion on COVID.

It does not end there, the new Ghc12.2billion he is reporting contradicts an earlier report by President Akufo-Addo to Parliament during the State of the Nation Address that the government has spent Ghc17.7billion on COVID.

On Wednesday, the Minority demanded a Parliamentary probe into the deliberate scatterbrain antics that Ofori-Atta is now pulling, but the Majority NPP side countered, asking the Speaker to leave the issue to the Auditor-General who is largely considered a stooge of the Akufo Addo government.

This is because, the current Auditor General, Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu is reported to be a poodle of Prof. Edward Dua-Agyemang, Chairman of the Audit Service Board who led the hatchet job to hound out former Auditor General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo, after Mr. Domelevo went after then-senior Minister, Osafo Maafo for corruptly paying UK Company, Kroll and Associates, US$1million for no work done.

Immediately after Domelevo was moved, the President appointed Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu in his place. Akuamoah Asiedu’s first act was to discontinue a court case that Domelevo’s Auditor General’s Department was having in court against Osafoi Maafo.

“What we want is to be certain whether it is Ghc17.7billion as reported by the President, whether it is Ghc12billion as reported by the Finance Minister today or it is the Ghc22billion he reported to us last year (2021),” charged the Bolga Central MP, Hon. Isaac Adongo

He points out that Ofori-Atta’s claim that the government has spent Ghc12.2billion, several months after President Akufo-Addo had reported Ghc17.7 billion was criminally contradictory.

“How many months after the president spoke? As a matter of fact we are expecting a statement to show that it is going up and that we have spent more than Ghc17.7billion. So right away, we become very confused that the numbers are now reversing backward. From Ghc17.7billion to Ghc12.2 billion. Mr. Speaker if we make a mistake and call him tomorrow, it will be Ghc9billion.”

“…The Minister concluded that all the monies that we borrowed that was utilized ended up at about Ghc16.4billion. He reported in that same document that when he now adds our own money which in this case is the money that he drew from our contingency fund, the total amount is Ghc18.1billion.This doesn’t look like Ghc12billion, in fact, that is 50% under-reporting.”

He points out that from the Minister’s own documents before Parliament, he is unable to speak to the same numbers a year after. As a result of the strange mathematics, Ghc10billion cannot be accounted for, he said.

Hon. Adongo pointed out audio clips that had emerged capturing NPP Parliamentary candidates who have revealed that COVID-19 monies were shared to them for their political campaigns.

It would be recalled that Felicia Tettey, who was also the ruling party’s Parliamentary Candidate for Sagnarigu in the 2020 elections, recently revealed in a radio interview that the COVID funds were shared to them and that she got Ghc100,000.

In addition, she reveals further that the party’s constituency was given about Ghc200, 000 while the various executives were given different amounts from the COVID fund.

Meanwhile, the former Deputy Minister of Finance and MP for Ajumako Enyan Essia, Dr. Casiel Ato Forson, and peppered Akufo-Addo’s scandal-prone Finance Minister, when he announced that the government had spent a whopping Ghc36million on the project design for the so-called agenda 111.

Agenda 111” is a nickname for the government’s project to build 111 district, regional and mental hospitals across the country. The project was announced in the wake of the pandemic and is therefore captured as part of the government’s expenditure under COVID-19.