Gov’t didn’t spend GHC 5.2 m on Ghana@60 – C’ttee Chairman

Chairman of the  Ghana 60 years on  committee, Ken Amankwah has debunked claims by a Deputy Finance Minister, Kwaku Kwarteng that the committee has so far received and used some 5.26 million cedis from the government for the celebration.

His clarification follows Kwaku Kwarteng’s briefing to Parliament that government had allocated over 3 million cedis from its coffers, with an additional allocation of over 2 million cedis from the District Assembly Common Fund to the committee for the celebrations.

“The Ministry of Finance released an amount of GH¢5.26 million cedis towards the celebration of the 60th independence anniversary of Ghana. This was made up of GH¢3.1 million from government of Ghana sources of funding and GH¢2.16 million from the District Assembly Common Fund. Out of the total GH¢5.26 million, GH¢ 3 million went to the office of the Chief of Staff at the Ghana at 60 secretariats while GH¢100,000 and GH¢2.1 million went to the 100 regional coordinating councils and 216 district assemblies respectively,” Mr. Kwarteng said.

Speaking to Citi News' Umaru Sanda Amadu however, Chairman of the committee, Ken Amankwah disputed the Deputy Minister’s claims, saying government never funded the committee’s activities.

“We’ve never relied on the public purse for any of Ghana@60 years celebration. The point is there are two budgetary allocations. Whether Ghana @60 comes on or not , there is always the celebration of Independence day. This year only happens to be the 60th Anniversary so the budgetary allocation meant for the celebration actually went to the parade of the military, the school children which occurs every year. It is not true that GHC 3 million came from government.”

Come clean on funding for Ghana@ celebration

Meanwhile, the Minority in Parliament has taken a swipe at the government for the apparent contradiction in the source of funding for the Ghana sixty years on celebration.

They describe as incompetent the Finance Ministry's inability to provide accurate information on the matter.

The NDC Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central and Member of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Isaac Adongo, insists government must come clean on the matter.

“Is the Chairman now providing an answer contrary to what the Minister said and told the people of Ghana? If you say the Minister did not know what he was talking about, there lies the incompetence of this government.The Minister of Finance was suppose to answer this question. He had provided his answer and made his deputy to step in . Unfortunately he just did not seem to have a clue about the single question and yet the Majority Leader said he was competent to answer?

“All he did was to demonstrate that he was incompetent to answer a single question.Now we are being told what the Ministry of Finance presented to us is even wrong. What kind of irony of incompetence is this?That within the same Ministry you are given two months to provide basic information and we are struggling to know what the information is. Most definitely they have to come clean with the figures,” he said.

–
By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @EfeAnsah