Member of Parliament for Juaboso, Kwame Mintah Akandoh has disclosed that the minority is determined to track the GHC600 million being used by government in executing its Agenda 111 project.
According to him, per information on the ground, money “spent in the name of Agenda 111 sums up to GHC636 million”.
Mr Akandoh further explained that in the case of the GHC36 million, government insist they used it for “consultancy” and other activities.
“In the case of the GHC600 million we do not know what they have used that money for. That money, is reported to have been spent, released or utilised in 2020, not even in 2021. When in actual fact, absolutely nothing has been done with regards to Agenda 111. So, for me, I do not want to speak to suspicion, I would want to restrict myself to the fact and raise questions that are clear.
“We have to proceed until we locate the final destination of that GHC600 million”.
Mintah Akandoh
Expenditure on Agenda 111 project
Deductions by the Juaboso legislator is premised on a release by the finance ministry which rejected claims made by the minority on spending GHC600 million on Agenda 111.
In the statement issued, the finance ministry explained that the money has rather been released into the projects account. Thus, the money in the account is yet to be utilized in pursuance of the project.
Reacting to this, Mr Akandoh noted that there are some discrepancies in narration of the money involved in the project.
“This is just the beginning. If they think that by this letter the matter is coming to an end, I’m sorry they’ll be disappointed. Because this is just the beginning of the whole thing and there are a lot of questions that must be answered than the answers they have provided. How can you caption money that has not been spent as utilized or released? We are talking about money that was released and spent in 2020 not 2021.
“So, he couldn’t have corrected that in the 2021 main budget… [and] mid-year review budget. Now, we are told that these monies were moved from the consolidated funds and now has found itself in the Ghana infrastructure funds. How it got there, there are a lot of questions to be answered”.
Mintah Akandoh
Minority threatens investigation
Furthermore, Mr Akandoh noted that the minority will call for a probe into the money spent on the project.
He further revealed that the money released by the finance ministry for the project by government must be traced.
“Now, this is what we are going to do. We are going to go in a direction where the ministry of health will be summoned before parliament. Because you see, before any money will be released for the purposes of operation for the ministry of health, there should be a warrant that should be generated… The ministry of finance will be invited, the controller will be invited, Bank of Ghana will be invited… and we are going to do the tracing of the money.
“What is important is that we must trace the money. Who issued what warrant… if there is money sitting in [an] account at the Bank of Ghana, is it reported as releases or it’s reported as utilized? So, there are a lot of questions that must be answered. In fact, their press release is even confusing people the more. For us, we are not going to leave the matter there.
“President said that they were going to take the money from the Ghana infrastructure fund. Now, we are being told that money was moved from the consolidated fund, through the Controller… and it has landed in the Ghana infrastructure fund”.
Mintah Akandoh
Read Also: Don’t panic over Marburg virus- Dr. Kojo Quarshie
