Finance Minister's ?45 billion Imprest

The hemorrhaging of the Ghanaian economy, which existed during the NDC era, has seen an increase with the NPP recording very obscene amounts. The amounts being questioned are related to imprest accounts for the office of Finance Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo.

This was a matter of serious concern raised in Parliament by Minority Chief Whip, E. K. Doe Adjaho. Mr Adjaho made comparative observations between statutory payments and discretionary payments as contained in Mr Osafo Maafo’s review of the Economic Performance.

Statutory Payments such as the District Assembly Common Fund and Ghana Education Trust Fund (which he considered a constitutional requirement) were generally below programmed amounts, discretionary payments were above the programmed amount of 0.1% of GDP.

Mr Adjaho went ahead to question the basis of an imprest account being held by Mr Osafo Maafo’s office to the tune of ?44.5 billion as at July 2002. This by all standards should be cause to worry since one would expect that a responsible ministry such as Finance should be able to budget appropriately for their programmes and not keep such large amounts of money for such purposes. This amount, given the benefit of doubt should represent a cumulative from January to July. This implies an imprest of ?6.3 billion per month or ?318 million per day.