Minority rejects government’s defence of Hawa Koomson budget

The Minority in Parliament has questioned the basis for the GHC1 billion budget estimate for the Ministry of Special Development Initiative following government’s defence of components of the heavily criticized budget.

Government on Wednesday in a statement said out of the over GH¢1 billion that is at issue, only GH¢1.5 million is available to the Ministry directly.

It added that the rest of the amount is only an appropriated ceiling made available in the 2018 Budget for the three Development Authorities to validate, properly budget with, plan and execute their on-ground projects, once established.

Government has downplayed the criticism that has attended the details of the budget being made public.

But in a reaction to government’s position, the MP for Bolga Central and member of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Isaac Adongo, said the explanation provided by government was flawed.

“The reason we approve appropriation is because you come with reasonable estimates. Now, when you bring estimates and the estimates are unreasonable you now say, even though they’re unreasonable when we’re spending we’ll be mindful. What informed the estimates, you would have done your own analysis of what you want to do, you would have done your own estimates of the various components of expenditures that should go into it.

“Today you’re now telling us that we should wait until you’ve spent. What type of government is this, that tells the people of Ghana that don’t worry about our budget, no matter how unreasonable they are you have a second chance of getting value for money. Where did this ever happen?

That clearly shows a government of incompetence, a government that is clueless, a government that has corruption in its DNA and if the people of Ghana had not seen this, they would have gone through with it.

Now that the people of Ghana have found out, they’re now saying we’re in a hurry this is just appropriation. What is the reasonableness when you’ve come to us and said I want to spend a whopping GHC187,000 on a water system,”. Adongo fumed.