The Majority NPP Caucus has described as dangerous attempts by the Minority NDC to discredit the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s claim of a missing GHC7million from the government’s treasury.
In their view, if they are to go by the explanations churned out by the Minority to refute Dr. Bawumia’s claim, they can only conclude that the immediate past NDC government lied to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in securing the US$900million Economic Credit Facility.
On Tuesday, January 31, 2017, the Ghanaian Times carried out a publication claiming the Vice President’s assertion that the past government failed to disclose the existence of a certain liability worth GHC7billion.
The Minority at a press conference on Wednesday, February 1, 2017, dismissed such claim, noting that the issue raised by Dr. Bawumia was as a result of a major initiative or reform on government contracts and expenditures which is part of the new GIFMIS project that the new administration is expected to continue implementing.
Minority Spokesperson on Finance, Cassel Ato Forson who addressed the press conference explained that the framework of the GIFMIS project is covered in the new Public Financial Management (PFM) Act.
But the Majority in a rebuttal at a press conference on Thursday, February 2, 2017, said should the explanation of the Minority stands; it means that they presented false data to the IMF in order to convince them to bailout Ghana from its economic mess.
“In his revelation, the Vice President made known that an amount of over GH?7billion as arrears has been uncovered in the process of interrogating data that was made available to the government. What is deeply worrying in the revelation is that the arrears covered the period 2014 – 2016, and span the period during which negotiations of the current Extended Credit Facility (ECF) Program with the IMF begun.”
“On the face of the reality that the arrears date back to 2014, then it would suggest that when the previous administration entered into negotiations with the IMF, full disclosure of data was not made available to the Fund. Again on account that arrears for 2015 and 2016 were also not fully disclosed, then it raises further questions on the integrity of data we have been churning out over the past eight year,” Chairman of the Finance Committee, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah, who addressed the NPP Majority Caucus noted.
He cautioned that the new uncovered arrears could put the overall budget deficit at 10 – 11 percent of GDP.
“Let us put this in perspective – for an economy with a size of US$41.5billion, the current deficit numbers show that in 2016 alone, our expenditures far exceeded revenues by as much as US$4billion. Who financed these expenditures? Is it the Bank of Ghana through the Banks? Is it from the US$250million that was provided UBA Bank?” Dr. Assibey-Yeboah quizzed.
He described the reaction from the Minority led by Ato Forson, a former deputy finance minister as sad and deeply worrying, noting that the position of the NDC depicts a team that is grossly unaware of the extent to which the nation’s books may have been cooked to provide false sense of good economic management and to deceive investors.
“More worrying is the fact that former deputy Minister attributed the arrears accumulation to reforms underway and the way in which data is captured. What the former deputy Minister describes as creative accounting management is unethical and dangerous,” he noted.
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