North Tongu Member of Parliament, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
The North Tongu Member of Parliament(MP), Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has said the NDC minority caucus will interrogate the 2020 audit report submitted to Parliament last week.
“The citizenry can count on the NDC caucus in Parliament to vigorously and fearlessly pursue these damning audit findings in the days ahead,” he wrote in a post on Facebook.
He’s bemoaned the budget overruns cited by the Auditor-General in his report saying “at this rate, one is left wondering not only if there’s anything left in the public purse but whether at all the public purse can still be found.”
The audited public sector accounts (General Government) for the year ending 31st December, 2020 reveals rather shockingly a staggering budget overrun of GHS8,827,394,033. (That is over US$1.4billion).
In what appears to be a free-for-all spending frenzy, the Office of Government Machinery where the presidency is located, spent an excess GHS54,055,032 in addition to the GHS4,395,894,365 approved by Parliament for that office.
Jean Mensa’s Electoral Commission also overshot its budget by a whopping GHS158,743,269. This is after spending the GHS1,521,900,898 it was allocated.
The Energy Ministry also spent in excess of their approved budget by a colossal GHS4,168,960,948. That was in addition to the GHS6,322,465,995 approved for them by Parliament.
In addition, the Ministry for the Interior accumulated a massive GHS2,390,985,300 after exhausting their approved allocation of GHS6,014,660,482.
Auditor-General Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu in his findings contended that these budget overruns blatantly offend the Appropriation Act, 2019 (Act 1008) and Section 29 of the PFM Act.
Ablakwa maintained that the development must not be swept under the carpet as the debate on the “abysmal record of the Akufo-Addo administration relating to protecting the public purse rages on…”