Smith-Ayariga Press Conference: Probe Ghana@50

We (Ayariga and I) have taken this stand in our private capacities as citizens of this country who are very concerned about what is going on.

Victor Smith

PRESS CONFERENCE CALLING FOR A PROBE INTO THE ACTIVITIES OF THE GHANA@50 SECRETARIAT AND THE DISBURSEMENT OF FUNDS APPROPRIATED FOR THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF GHANA’S INDEPENDENCE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL COMPLEX.

Organised by Hon Mahama Ayariga and Victor Smith at the International Press Center on Thursday, 2nd August 2007

Ladies and gentlemen of the media.

We have invited you here this afternoon on a very short notice because we wish to draw your attention to an urgent national matter. You will recall that on the 6th of March this year Ghana turned 50 years. There was a national consensus that this anniversary occasion provided us with a unique opportunity for a sober reflection on our 50 years of nationhood. We agreed to commemorate this event in remembrance of our struggle for independence and to critically exam our progress as a nation since then.

As usual, the government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) seized this opportunity to execute a well thought out scheme for deliberately appropriating and dissipating huge sums of public money without any intention to be accountable.

The NPP government’s grand plan to use an important occasion such as the 50th anniversary to deliberately dissipate huge sums of public money began first with a request for c 188 billion for the 50th anniversary celebration. There was a sharp departure from the usual practice of itemizing and providing the estimated cost of each item of expenditure. The NPP government which deliberately started planning the anniversary very late argued that details of the programme were not yet ready. This made the NDC minority in parliament to condone the approval of c188 billion budgetary allocations to the Ghana@50 Secretariat on the understanding that the Secretariat will subsequently present to the House a detailed programme with clear estimated costs immediately they are available.

To avoid public scrutiny of the expenditure relating to the anniversary celebration they set up a national planning committee made up of NPP functionaries. The demand for inclusion made by other political parties was rejected. The promise to provide the Parliamentary Finance Committee with details of the itemized expenditure of the Ghana @50 Secretariat was quickly forgotten of and efforts by the Committee to secure accountability from the Chief Executive of the Secretariat, Dr Wereko Brobbey, was met with scornful resistance. Dr Wereko Brobbey contemptuously disregarded an invitation from the Committee to appear before it and account for the funds it requested for from Parliament. Parliament was subsequently told that Hon Kojo Mpianim asked him not to attend the Committee’s invitation and that Parliament could only deal with Kojo Mpianim because he has ministerial responsibility for the allocated money. In response to the need to know what was going to happen to the money Kojo Mpianim told Parliament to wait for the Auditor-Generals report long after he has successfully dissipated state funds deliberately and recklessly.

Hon Kojo Mpianim, the Minister For Presidential Affairs used very unfamiliar means to manipulate Parliament, with the active assistance of the majority, into approving for him the sum of c 188 billion under circumstances where Parliament did not know exactly what he was to use the money for and under an arrangement where he did not countenance the appropriate parliamentary oversight regarding the use of the funds. This is a practice that has become very characteristic of the NPP administration which has spared no opportunity to undermine parliamentary oversight on the executive arm of government. It is the same approach that he has used to appropriate the sum of about $55million for the construction of a presidential complex, a subject that we will examine in due course.

Ladies and gentlemen, the anniversary celebration itself witnessed an unprecedented pretentious display of opulence by a nation ranked as second to war torn Sudan in the incidence of Guinea worm infections, a sad betrayal of the basic lack of portable drinking water for some of its citizens. The speed and efficiency with which government responded to the housing needs of the visiting dignitaries establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the failure to meet the housing needs of university students in Ghana is clearly a function of lack of government concern about their welfare rather than lack of capacity. The most expensive cars were imported to be used by dignitaries visiting for just a couple of days.

Fellow citizens, even before accounting for the c 188 billion appropriation for the 50th anniversary celebration, the NPP government in March 2007 brought to Parliament and sought approval for a loan agreement between Fidelity Bank and the Government of Ghana for an amount of $11,800,000.00 (c 110,191,005,003.00) to be borrowed from the bank to further finance the Ghana@ celebrations. Well aware that the NDC in parliament will strongly resist parliamentary approval of this loan agreement, the leadership of the NPP in Parliament deliberately avoided consideration of it until the last day of parliamentary sitting for the session. Consequently, on the 30th of July 2007 the NPP government used its majority in parliament to push through that agreement. We wish to state categorically that all NDC members of parliament who spoke to the motion requesting for approval disapproved of the loan agreement. Also the entire membership of the NDC minority side voted against the approval of the loan agreement. There has been a deliberate attempt to create the impression that the minority NDC side in the House supported the approval of the loan. This is a lie. The NDC argued against it and all our parliamentarians voted against it.

Ladies and gentlemen, with the NPP using its majority in parliament to approve the c 110,191,005,003.00 loan agreement, the total NPP government appropriation for the Ghana@50 celebration stands at c 315,111,005,003 (if we accept the report that corporate contribution to the anniversary celebration stood only at c 22 billion cedis)!!! One is at a loss as to how what we all saw as the activities and investment projects marking the celebration could cost us that much.

According to the NPP Government, they spent c 6,815,629,908.46 on printing diaries alone. They also spent c 4,713,278,017.00 on printing calendars! In addition they used c 391,000,000.00 to create a website for the anniversary celebrations. For services alone the NPP government claims that they spent an astonishing sum of c 30,631,917,981.46. The Minister for Presidential Affairs claims that c 19,858,682,962.33 was spent on furnishing the AU housing! Even though c 17,489,784,057.67 was spent on putting up the houses! On the VVIP lounge at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) the NPP government claims that a total sum of c 24,363,099,806.62 was spent. In addition, the NPP government claims that the sum of c 24,349,688.91 was spent on what they variously describe as “Restoration of the Independence Square” and “Independence Square Rehabilitation”.

Ladies and gentlemen, another project in relation to which the NPP government has embarked upon a reckless dissipation of public funds is the construction of the presidential complex. The NPP government used its numbers again to bulldoze through parliament a loan of close to $15 million for further works on the project. This latter sum was meant for, among other things, “landscaping, including garden furniture and computerized irrigation system” - $2,900,000.00; “construction of fence wall and biogas sewerage treatment plant - $2,568,855.94”; and ‘furniture, furnishings and interior decoration works - $5,000,000.00”! Let me re-iterate that at no time in our nation’s financial history have we witnessed such a wanton and reckless dissipation of public funds with obvious impunity.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are told that our framework for accountability does not allow us to question government appropriations until we have an Auditor-General’s report raising issues of financial impropriety. We reject that proposition. This is not an effective mechanism for protecting the public purse. Loss of funds to the state would already have been occasioned. We therefore call for a more pre-emptive approach to protecting the public funds. This is consistent with our article 41(f) constitutional “…duty of every citizen to … expose and combat misuse and waste of public funds and property;” In that regard we are calling for nothing less than a comprehensive probe into the activities of the Ghana@50 Secretariat. We will demand a disclosure of the details relating to every project relating to the celebration of the anniversary. We will demand to know the companies that were awarded the contracts for the various projects. We will demand for the bill of quantities relating to the projects. We will also demand a disclosure of the processes used to select the companies.

We are calling on the public to condemn this gross display of financial recklessness and abuse of trust by the NPP government. We also call on all Ghanaians to support this effort to ensure government accountability and we plead that we should not let it degenerate into partisan bickering. If there is anything thing we should have resolved to do on the occasion of our 50th anniversary that should be to commit ourselves to fiercely resisting unaccountable governance. With a renewed spirit let us collectively demand accountability on this occasion. We wish to state emphatically that we shall leave no stone unturned to ensure accountability in this matter.

Once again ladies and gentlemen of the media, we thank you very much for attending to this invitation. This is going to be long struggle and we hope that you will continue to be with us.

Thank you.

……………………… Hon Mahama Ayariga

……………….. Mr Victor Smith

Victor E. Smith