The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), has rehashed its displeasure on the lack of cooperation from the Finance Ministry in its 2020 half-year report.
Contained in the report, the Committee asserted the Finance Ministry did not provide half-year data on its Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) utilization upon their request.
This, the committee say has been limiting the effectiveness of their work, and gradually wiping out transparency.
The Ministry was also accused to have violated sections of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA) 893, and Ghana Investment Infrastructure Fund (GIIF) Act 877 in that report.
According to PIAC, the first half of 2020 marks the fourth time it has not been provided data for its report. The first half of 2020 report also indicated that, the failure of the Ministry to provide it with relevant information has resulted in the committee’s failure to report on programmes and activities undertaken with some US$ 169.51million.
“This Report is also without the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) expenditure information for the period, arising from the failure of the Ministry of Finance to provide the expenditure data requested by PIAC.
“This is the fourth time the Ministry has failed to furnish the Committee in a timely manner, with data on ABFA utilization for the compilation of its Semi-Annual Reports, as required by the PRMA. As a result, PIAC is unable to report on the programmes and activities undertaken with an amount of US$169.51 million disbursed to the ABFA for the period.
“Similarly, the Committee is unable to provide update on the status of the unutilized and unaccounted for ABFA balance which stood at GH₵1.5 billion, as reported in the 2019 PIAC Annual Report.” the report read.
In its recommendations, it called on the Parliament “to bring its oversight mandate to bear on the Ministry of Finance.”
“This is because the Ministry’s persistent failure (fourth time) to provide half-year data on ABFA utilization is not only adversely affecting the work of the Committee, but also eroding gains in the fight for transparency and accountability in the management and use of Ghana’s petroleum revenues for the benefit of citizens.”
The lack of Finance Ministry Data also “makes it difficult to reconcile disbursements and expenditure and undermines the spirit of accountability,” the report also said.
In its 2019 report, PIAC described the Ministry as having acted with impunity after it did not account for the use of oil money allocated to the budget.
PIAC has been publishing reports on the management and use of petroleum revenues since the nation began producing oil in 2010.
This is in line with Section 56 of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA), 2011 (Act 815).
