General News of 2013-03-06

Presidency did not spend extra GHC600 million - Mahama Ayariga

Mahama Ayariga has said claims by the Minority in Parliament that the Office of the President overspent its budget allocation for 2012 by GhC600 million are "false".

“It is absolutely not true; this is the false of the millennium...meant to malign the Office of the President,” Mr. Ayariga stated on Joy FM Wednesday.

According to Mr. Ayariga, the minority in presenting their version of the State of the Nation Address last week wrongly took the Office of Government Machinery to be the Office of the President.

According to him, “the Office of the President is one unit under the Office of Government Machinery.”

“There are close to 60 organisations operating under the Office of Government Machinery including MASLOC, AIDS Commission among others, and the Office of the President is one of such organisations,” the Information Minister explained.

He also described the allegation that government overspent allocation for the Office of Government Machinery as inaccurate.

He disclosed that details of the disbursement of funds will be published by the Ministry of Finance and Economic planning soon.

He said the Finance Minister should rather be commended for demonstrating honesty in acknowledging the fact that government recorded a deficit in its 2012 allocations.

Apart from indicating how the deficits were recorded, the Finance Minister further outlined plans to cut down on expenditure this year so that the deficits would not recur, Mr. Ayariga stated.