David Annan: Transition expenditure was money well spent

Leading Member of the NDC, Tony Aidoo

A member of the government transition team, Mr. David Annan, has said that the GH¢361,924 spent during the transition process was money well spent.

He said the previous New Patriotic Party Government must have spent more although he could not state specifically how much that government must have spent.

Mr Annan, who was a member of the sub-committee on legal and energy, told Joy FM's Super Morning Show host Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah the opposition NPP had no moral locus to be complaining about the cost of the transition.

The minority in Parliament Wednesday raised issues with the figure arguing the money was too much to spend on a mere transition.

The Minority argued it was ridiculous, unacceptable and unethical for a government that has sworn to provide a lean government and to cut down on profligate spending to spend such an amount on transition.

“We all have been campaigning seriously before the last elections. I don't think they were paying themselves ¢13 million a month when they were campaigning. They thought that they were sacrificing for the party, so why couldn't they have an extension of that in government.

“You have even won power. You were in the process of forming government so why would you have to pay yourself this per diem and later spend 1 billion three hundred and fifty million for refreshment for a country that is broke?” MP for Okere, Dan Botwe told Joy News in reference to allowances paid to members of the transition.

But Mr. Annan says the Minority's criticisms were misplaced.

“The thing is that we took monies that were below the level that NPP itself set in 2001…I can tell you for a fact that it is 20 per cent below what the NPP spent in 2001,” he said.

“Looking at the results of the transition team, the fact that we have been able to uncover a lot of malfeasance which would not have been so without a transition, I think it is money well spent,” he added.

In any case, the money, he argued was spent on locally produced foods and “let me tell you that the 1.3 billion (old cedis) since it was spent on locally produced items simply went to boost the manufacturers and the producers of this economy.”

The transition team since Wednesday received a lot of flak for spending as much as 1.3 billion old cedis on only refreshments.

But another stalwart of the government Dr. Tony Aidoo told Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah that gate crashers accounted for the seeming high figure.

He said people who were not on the transition team ate and drank on the account of the transition team.

Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyonline