The government of Nana Akufo-Addo is finding excuses to run away from its promises by claiming that the Mahama administration “hid” GHS7billion of expenditure during its time in office, Mr James Klutse Avedzi, former Chairman of the Finance Committee in the sixth parliament has said.
The Deputy Minority Leader’s comments follows a revelation by Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia that the previous administration failed to disclose that quantum of expenditure before leaving office.
Dr Bawumia said the amount spans 2014 to 2016 and was detected as the new Akufo-Addo administration sieved through the economic data inherited from the Mahama government to prepare this year’s budget.
Speaking at a Good Corporate Governance forum in Accra on Tuesday, Dr Bawumia said: “Where have they been hiding all these years and how are you supposed to manage an economy with faulty data. 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 that by the way there is Ghc7 billion that you have to pay next year that you didn’t anticipate, this is the reality. We’ve been less than a month in office, but we have taken some steps to accelerate the implementation of some measures that will ensure accountability, transparency and integrity in the government.”
Reacting to Dr Bawumia’s revelation, however, the Ketu North MP said: “It [GHS7bn] has been disclosed.”
“ … He is only using that to deceive Ghanaians to say that there is a GHS7bn amount which definitely will be a duty of this government to pay and saying that how can they manage the economy with that amount so which means that if they are not able to fulfill their promises, they will put the blame on the outstanding amount of GHS7bn which has not been paid by the previous government and because they will now be in a position to pay that, they will not be able to fulfill their promises,” Mr Avedzi told Nii Arday Clegg on Accra-based Starr FM’s morning show on Tuesday, 1 February.
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