Former Auditor General Daniel Yaw Domelevo is calling for a value for money audit into the covid-19 expenditure of government.
The anti-graft campaigner at a virtual lecture organized by the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration(GIMPA) indicated that although, government may have good intentions of protecting the public health but some unscrupulous individuals are beginning to subvert the procurement system similar to the trend around the world.
The Ministry of Finance, in March this year, debunked media reports that claimed that the government spent GH¢1.7 billion on the COVID-19 pandemic, even though the government says it spent GH¢19 billion.
The Ministry, in a statement, said GH¢1.7 billion reflects expenditures on only two items under the COVID-19 related expenditures, namely, COVID-19 Alleviation Programme 1 (CAP1) and Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan 1.
It said other COVID-19 expenditures were COVID-19 Alleviation Programme 2 (CAP2), COVID-19 Preparedness Plan 2, Provision of Health Infrastructure, Seed Fund for Capitalization of Development Bank, among others.
As of end-December 2020, the ministry said Ghana incurred a revenue shortfall of GH¢11,942.7 million and expenditure increase of GH¢14,074.2 million in relation to their respective targets in the 2020 budget passed in Parliament in November 2019.
It said the amount of GH¢16.8 billion referred to in Appendix 12B only provided information on sources of financing the fiscal gap resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
These monies were sourced from the IMF (GH¢5,853 million), AfDB (GH¢405.7 million), EU (GH¢504 million), and BOG COVID-19 Bonds (GH¢10,000 million), among others. For the avoidance of doubt, Appendix 2A of the 2021 Budget Statement indicates that total financing for 2020 was GH¢44,897.9 million and not GH¢16,460.4 million.
The Ministry also noted that media reports that suggested that the government announced that the COVID-19 levy was to be utilized in paying for free water and electricity of 2020 was incorrect.
The statement said the Minister of Information’s comment to the effect that COVID-19 expenses include water and electricity, ought not to be misconstrued to mean the new taxes of 2021 are a direct charge for those services.
The details of the usage of funds from the COVID-19 levy are listed on Page 75 of the 2021 budget as follows:
Procurement, distribution and administration of vaccines ‒ the first batch of 600,000 doses from the COVAX Facility have already been delivered and an additional 17,600,000 vaccine doses to be delivered by June, with more to come in the course of the year.
As of Wednesday 10th March 2021, over 262,335 Ghanaians received the first dose of the vaccines; Establishment of fourteen (14) medical waste treatment facilities across the country for safe disposal of medical waste in collaboration with the private sector; Thirty-three (33) major health projects approved for implementation at a cost of €890 million; To date, 14,600,000 pieces of personal protective equipment produced domestically and distributed to health workers, students, teaching and non-teaching staff of tertiary and secondary educational institutions; Fumigation and disinfection of public places including, airports, markets, schools, hospitals, offices etc.; Agenda 111 ‒ the construction of 100-bed District Hospitals in 101 Districts with no hospitals, seven (7) Regional Hospitals for the new Regions, including one for the Western Region, the construction of two (2) new psychiatric hospitals for the Middle and Northern Belts, respectively, and the rehabilitation of Effia-Nkwanta Hospital in the Western Region; and The need to recruit more health care professionals, in addition to the 100,000 recruited in the first term of the President.
Mr Domelevo is calling for an independent audit into the monies used by government in fighting covid-19 in the country.
Executive Director for the African Center for Health Policy Research and Analysis Dr. Thomas Anaba is backing calls as he claims a number of bad deals continue to place in the name of covid-19.
