[ 2017-02-01 ]

Bawumia goofed on GHC 7 billion expenditure claim – Minority
The Minority in Parliament has watered down
suggestions by Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia
that the previous government failed to account for
GHC 7 billion they spent while in office.

The Minority in a statement today [Wednesday],
expressed its displeasure with the Vice
President’s revelation, describing it as most
“unfortunate.”

“We are displeased by the tendency of the Vice
President to rush with information to the public
and the media particularly the structural measures
and reforms without taking time to understand the
rational for the reforms and initiatives.”

The Minority explained that, the Ghc 7 billion
that the Vice President Dr. Bawumia is talking
about “is as a result of a major initiative or
reform on government contracts and expenditure,
which is part of the GIFMIS project that the new
administration is expected to continue
implementing.

The framework is also covered in the new Public
Financial Management (PFM) Act, under the Budget
Responsibility provisions.” The Minority
explained that, the fund was used for “part of
the contract database and outstanding commitment,
and does not constitute conventional definition of
arrears. The government is obliged to incorporate
the commitments, as a first charge on the
Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDA’s)
budget 2017.”

What did Bawumia say?

The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, on
Tuesday revealed that an amount of GHC 7 Billion
spent by the previous National Democratic Congress
(NDC) government, had not been accounted for.
Speaking on the topic: The Role of Integrity and
Transparency in Accelerating Ghana’s Development
at the launch of the Ghana Corporate Governance
Initiative in Accra on Tuesday, Dr. Bawumia said
the current government discovered this while
interrogating data on the previous government’s
expenditure. Dr. Bawumia added that, the previous
government failed to disclose this backlog of
expenditure.

“In preparing for this year’s Budget for
example, we have been very surprised by the fiscal
data, the data on our expenditure and our revenue.
As we interrogated the data, we realized to our
shock that, expenditure amounting to 7 billion
cedis was made by the previous government, but
never disclosed.

These come from 2014, 2015 and 2016, so where have
they been hiding all these years? How are you
supposed to manage an economy with faulty data?
And so we have to emphasize that, getting the data
right is really very key because it throws the
entire budget into disarray because you are going
into 2017 and suddenly you are told by the way
that there is 7 billion you have to pay next year
that you did not anticipate. This is the
reality.”

Source - citifmonline.com

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