Brouhaha over GH¢7m missing cash

  The Ghanaian Times reported on Wednesday this week that Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia had accused the previous government of failing to disclose expenditures amounting to GH¢7 billion from state coffers from 2014 to 2016. According to Dr Bawumia, the current administration discovered the “hidden data” while it was preparing the 2017 budget statement, which […]

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The Ghanaian Times reported on Wednesday this week that Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia had accused the previous government of failing to disclose expenditures amounting to GH¢7 billion from state coffers from 2014 to 2016.

According to Dr Bawumia, the current administration discovered the “hidden data” while it was preparing the 2017 budget statement, which was expected to be presented to Parliament next month.

“In preparing for this year’s budget, we have been surprised by the fiscal data. As we interrogated the data to see exactly why our public finances are in the state they are, we found out that there are about GH¢7 billion of expenditures that have not been disclosed.

“These come from 2014, 2015 and 2016. Where have they been hiding this data all these years? And how are we supposed to manage the economy with faulty data? This can throw our entire budget into disarray, and this is the reality,” he said.

A day after Dr Bawumia had said this, the Minority in Parliament also organised a press conference and claimed that: “The GH¢7 billion the Vice President is making reference to is part of the contract database and outstanding commitments, and does not constitute conventional definition for arrears.

“The government is obliged to incorporate the commitments as a first charge on ministries, department and agencies’ (MDA’s) budget for 2017,” they said, and charged the NPP to focus on enhancing the contract data base, which was part of the next phase of the public financial management reforms, than the unnecessary politicking, since the political campaigns are over.

First of all, The Chronicle does not think the accusation and counter-accusation would have arisen if the transitional team had properly been briefed on the state of the economy.

In 2008, the then Kufuor government had just a little over a week to hand over power to the incoming Atta Mills’ administration. It was because of this setback that that the Transitional Act was enacted to ensure a smooth transfer of power.

Even though the Act mandates the incumbent government to prepare its handing over notes and deposit it with the Administrator General a month to the expiration of office of the government, this was not complied with.

Some of the ministries that submitted the handing over notes also went back to collect them when the NDC lost power after the December 7 elections.

It is our contention that if this constitutional order of submitting the handing over notes before the tenure of office of the incumbent government expires had been complied with, both the Vice President and NDC Minority would today not be arguing over missing cash from the national treasury.

Again, if the outgone government had disclosed the proper state of affairs of the Ghana economy to Dr Bawumia and his team during the transitional period, the Vice President would not have gone public with the information that GH¢7 billion was missing from the national treasury.

Our democracy is being praised all over the world, because the change over from one government to the other is rare in Africa. Unfortunately, the issue of handing over notes to the incoming government is gradually denting our image. We must, therefore, find a way out to avoid some of these accusations and counter-accusations in future.

 

Every aspect of the economy – good or bad – must be stated clearly on paper for the incoming government. If it had been done, civil society groups would have been the first to criticise Dr Bawumia for ignoring the evidence put before him and making accusations.

 

 

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