One of Ghana’s vibrant Public Accountability and Anti-Corruption Civil Societies, the Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) has petitioned the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to probe the Ministry of Finance so as to know what the Ministry used the $560million meant for COVID-19 relief programs from the World Bank for.
In its petition, ASEPA noted that it is deeply concerned that government has introduced several new taxes and increased utility tariffs even though it received financial support in 2020, to initiate several measures to fight the pandemic such as procurement of PPEs, sanitizers, food distribution, and utility relief packages such as electricity.
ASEPA’s petition which is dated, February 7, 2022 requested the OSP to find out “whether the World Bank has asked government to refund the support it granted it to implement such reliefs” and “why Ghanaians have been asked to pay back a relief which had been funded by money from the World Bank”.
ASEPA’s decision to petition the OSP follows a revelation by World Bank Country Director, Pierre Frank Laporte that his outfit, the World Bank provided the government of Ghana with $430 million to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
“…and this includes different activities including initially the communication campaign, the sensitization campaign, equipping labs, equipping new facilities to receive patients, and to treat patients,” he told an Accra base radio station.
World Bank’s country Director, Mr Frank Laporte further noted that his outfit further provided an additional $130million purposely for the purchase of vaccines for Ghana.
According to the Executive the Executive Director of ASEPA, Mensah Thompson, there is what he termed lack of transparency and accountability in the use of the Covid funds.
The petition further noted urged the OSP to investigate how much the $130million World Bank support for the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines was applied; probe how the Covid-19 relief loans under the Obatanpa Program was disbursed by the NBSSI.
Continuing with its petition, ASEPA noted that it was important that the OSP probed the procurement of PPEs for schools and hospitals as well as the food distribution and utility relief packages such as free water and electricity that was given during the Covid-19 period.
It pointed out it suspects that the procurement of PPEs were not in conformity with the laid down public procurement laws and there exist widespread allegations of corruption in these procurements.
It has therefore has requested the OSP to look into the $1billion given to government by the International Monetary Fund (IMF); and the application of the proceeds from the Heritage funds which government applied in the fight against Covid-19.
Concluding, the group mentioned that it has confidence in the Office of the Special Prosecutor to do a diligent job and further requested from the OSP updates on the status of the investigations into the Frontiers Health Services Covid-19 testing contract at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).
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