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.”

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By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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