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PIAC bares teeth at government over ‘missing’ ¢400m oil cash

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The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) has bared its teeth at the Ministry of Finance for consistently failing to respond to questions regarding GH¢403.74 million being the unutilised portion of the Annual Budget Funding Amount Allocation, ABFA for 2017.
At a media briefing in Accra, Chairman of PIAC, Dr. Steve Manteaw, said the Ministry is frustrating its work by refusing to respond to the committee.

Dr. Manteaw contended that the Ministry of Finance has only provided data on the ABFA allocations, but failed to release data on expenditure. As a result PIAC has not been able to meet its statutory reporting timeline of September 15.
“PIAC wrote to the Minister of Finance on 19th June, 2018 for explanation, but has received no response. Not even a reminder to the Ministry, sent about a month ago has elicited a response”, he added.
He further explained that, “even as we speak, our request for the half data for 2018 has not been fully responded to. We requested for the data on 17th July, 2018 to enable us put together our half year report.”
The Committee has challenged the Ministry of Finance to respond to its questions in the spirit of Transparency and Accountability. It has also resolved that in the interest of citizens of Ghana which it represents, it will relentlessly follow matters to their logical conclusion.
PIAC’s response was to the Ministry of Finance’s statement which it indicated that the said amount was transferred into the Treasury Single Account in 2017 in accordance with Section 46 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921).
Dr. Manteaw suggested that, the money which the Finance Ministry claims has been transferred into the Treasury Single Account in 2017 has been spent because government continuously borrowed at expensive rates to finance other expenditures.
In 2016, PIAC embarked on physical inspection of oil-funded projects, when it came to its attention that the five years running, the Ministry of Finance had failed to fully comply with Section 48 (2b) of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act 2011, Act 815, which enjoins the Minster to provide update on the stage of implementation of oil-funded projects, as part of its Reconciliation Report to Parliament.
The initial inspection covered six projects in the Northern part of the country. The Committee was amazed to discover that three out of the six projects inspected did not exist.
On it return on the field, PIAC wrote to the Ministry of Finance August 2016 to seek explanation from what it has uncovered during its project inspection.
The committee is yet to receive an acknowledgement, let alone the explanation it sought.
Story by: Mabel Adorkor Annang

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