Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the Member of Parliament for North Tongu Constituency has revealed that in 2021 alone, Government spent GH¢358,164,828 as compensation expenditure in the Special Development Initiatives Secretariat.

According to Okudzeto Ablakwa, in 2020, the defunct Ministry for Special Development Initiatives, from which the Special Development Initiatives Secretariat was created did not spend as much on compensations even though it was a full-fledged Ministry of State.

Apparently, the Special Development Initiatives Secretariat received a whooping GHS357million in addition to what the erstwhile Ministry of Special Development Initiatives Secretariat received in 2020.

“President Akufo-Addo adds over GHS357million to the compensation expenditure of his Special Development Initiatives Secretariat at the Presidency soon after collapsing the Special Development Initiatives Ministry.”
Okudzeto Ablakwa, MP

In a statement shared on the official facebook page of the North Tongu Legislator, he disclosed that the Ministry of Special Development Initiatives spent less than a million cedis when it was operational in 2020.

“Before President Akufo-Addo’s infamous Ministry for Special Development Initiatives was scrapped in 2021, the 2020 Budget confirms at page 234 (appendix 7) that it had a total staff strength of 26 with annual salaries amounting to a sum of GHS977,562 (less than 1million).”
Okudzeto Ablakwa, MP

Hon. Ablakwa argued why a secretariat curved out of a defunct Ministry spent more than the Ministry spent when the Ministry was functional.

The reason for dissolving the Ministry of Special Development Initiatives and some other Ministries created during President Akufo-Addo’s first term in office was to cut down on Government’s expenditure.

However, in a rather unfortunate turn of events, Okudzeto Ablakwa reports that Government’s expenditure on compensations in the Special Development Initiatives Secretariat for 2021 alone, was an increase of 36,538.6% of what it spent in 2020 when it was a Ministry of State.

“The 2021 Auditor General’s Report on General Government reveals at page 200 that after Special Development Initiatives became a secretariat at the Presidency last year, their actual compensation has seen an astronomical increase from GH¢977,562 in 2020 to GH¢358,164,828. This represents a scary percentage increase of 36,538.6% and an additional burden of more than GH¢357million.”
Okudzeto Ablakwa, MP

Moreover, Hon. Ablakwa noted that when other expenditures in the secretariat are added, then in 2021, Ghana spent almost a billion cedis in the Special Development Initiatives Secretariat.

“Overall, with a fat Goods and Services actual expenditure of more than GHS50million, that tax guzzling Special Development Initiatives Secretariat at the Presidency cost the Ghanaian taxpayer a whopping GHS984,142,390 (almost a billion Ghana Cedis) in 2021 alone.”
Okudzeto Ablakwa, MP

Akufo-Addo Pledged to Protect the National Purse

From the very first time when Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo campaigned to be President of Ghana, he promised to protect the national purse.

During his run for President in 2012 for example, he tweeted on October 3, 2012, “I will protect the public purse jealously if elected as President. You have my word.”

Fast forward, when candidate Akufo-Addo was elected into office in the 2016 general elections, he re-echoed his committee to safeguarding the taxpayers money while giving his inaugural speech on January 7, 2017.

“I shall protect the public purse by insisting on value for money in all public transactions. Public service is just that; service and not an avenue for making money. Money is to be made in the private sector, not the public. Measures will be put in place to ensure this.”
President Akufo-Addo

The newly sworn-in President might have renewed the hopes of many Ghanaians who had concluded that corruption and high Government expenditures couldn’t be dealt with when he remarked, “State coffers are not spoils for the party that wins an election, but resources for the country’s social and economic development.”

Maybe, since these promises were made for the period 2017 to 2020, Ghanaians couldn’t hold President Akufo-Addo accountable even if they thought he hadn’t secured the public purse well enough.

But on the 7th of January, 2021, when Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo officially began his second term in office as the President and Commander-in-Chief of Ghana’s Armed Forces, he promised Ghanaians that, all he will do “will be for the common good.”

President Akufo-Addo has barely nine (9) weeks to complete two (2) years in his second term of office, having served an initial four-year term.

In your opinion, has Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo protected the public purse jealously; has all his actions been for the common good?