The Mahama administration hid expenditure amounting to GHS7billion, Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has revealed.
He said the amount spans 2014 to 2016 and was detected as the new Akufo-Addo administration sieved through the economic data inherited from the immediate past government.
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 GHS7 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.”
Dr Bawumia also said the Mahama administration started putting up a house for the Vice President at a price of $13.9million, before leaving office.
According to him, he was “shocked” when he was told of the price for the house, which, in his view, was “most likely sole-sourced”.
Dr Bawumia said it was important to enforce the Public Procurement Act “strictly” so as to avoid such blatant abuse of the Public Procurement Act to safeguard the taxpayers’ purse.
“Very importantly, we want to ensure the strict enforcement of the Public Procurement Act, Act 663; it is an Act that in my opinion and in the opinion of many, has really been abused recently, the resort to sole-sourcing of contracts has been more the rule rather than the exception,” Dr Bawumia said.
“The way the Act was designed, sole-sourcing was not supposed to be as rampant as we are seeing it today and I think that we will have to enforce this Public Procurement Act.
“I’ll give you one example which I found out recently: there was this brouhaha about the vice president’s residence, I’m sure you heard about that, so in the context of discussing this issue, there’s supposed to be a vice president’s residence under construction, official, so to speak, so, I asked the question: why is this project being delayed, why hasn’t it been finished? And they said: ‘Well, the contractor is owed a lot of money.’ I said: ‘Well how much is this money?’ And then I’m told it is actually a lot of money. How much is this house actually costing? And I was shocked when I was told. Can you believe in Ghana we are building a house to house our vice president and this house is supposed to cost $13.9million? I mean what sort of house is this supposed to be? I mean, is the gate made of gold, the pavement of gold, the blocks of gold? [A] house in Ghana for 13.9 million dollars? I couldn’t believe it. How many boreholes couldn’t we have done [with such an amount?]. Of course I’m 100 per cent sure it didn’t go through competitive tender otherwise we would have known about it. It was most likely sole-sourced and there it stands uncompleted, but this is just an example of many contracts that we don’t have value for money for …”
According to him, if Ghana is to achieve accelerated growth and development through transparency and integrity as the theme for the event suggests, then such practices must be got rid of in the country’s governance.
Dr Bawumia noted that the theme coincides with President Nana Akufo-Addo’s vision to build a new Ghana founded on the pledge of value for money and economic opportunity for all irrespective of their background. “A new Ghana in which hard work pays and cutting corners does not,” he added.
“We cannot achieve this vision unless we promote good governance, accountability and transparency,” he said, adding that “leadership plays an important role in good governance”.
In line with this, Dr Bawumia said the Akufo-Addo government intends making corruption a felony rather than a misdemeanour, while seeking to quickly have parliament pass the Right To Information Bill so as to enhance transparency.
“We are going to have to push parliament to make the necessary amendments and if I had my way, it should be passed within these first 100 days of this government,” the Vice President said, adding: “It brings transparency in our governance.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
