Your reckless gov’t spent 10 billion on unrelated Covid-19 issues and yet blames other things for our economic woes -MP

The Member of Parliament for Builsa South has raised questions over the misappropriation of Covid-19-related funds.

Dr. Clement Apaak says the government kept blaming Covid-19 as one of the reasons for our economic world when in actual fact the allocation for Covid-19 expenditure was misappropriated.

He said although Covid-19 gave the government so many funds, 10 billion was used for unrelated activities.

The Auditor-General has revealed that the government spent ¢10 billion of monies mobilised for Covid-19 activities on budget support.

According to the A-G, a total of ¢21,844,189,185.24 was mobilised for the fight against the outbreak in Ghana.

However, out of this amount, only ¢11,750,683,059.11 was spent on Civid-19/activities.

The A-G said the rest, per its records, was used for budget support.

“Out of ¢21,844,189,185.24 mobilised, ¢11,750,683,059.11 was spent on Covid-19 activities and the rest on budget support.

“On Covid-19 activities, we noted that ¢8,658,496,124.96 was spent in 2020, ¢3,084,311,725.45 in 2021, and ¢7,875,208.70 in 2022 to mitigate the impact of coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic in Ghana,” excerpt of the report said.

The report also revealed that $80m worth of vaccines paid for by the government has not been delivered.

According to the A-G, the government paid over $120m to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT) but only $38m worth was delivered.

Meanwhile, the report also stated that over US$2.5bn (¢21bn) of monies mobilised for the fight against Covid-19, only 25% (¢5.5) was used on health.

The A-G added that the balance was spent on government programmes such as Free SHS and LEAP, among others.

Aside from these figures, GHc605,000 of Covid-19 funds was paid to chiefs using Covid funds unaccounted for. GHc150,000 of that amount was misapplied.

Dr. Apaak reacting to this slammed the government and wondered why it would misapply funds meant for Covid-19 expenditure and later blame its recklessness and mismanagement on something else.

He tweeted saying “Explosive. Covid-19 gave gov’t so much funds, 10b was used for activities unrelated to Covid. How can a pandemic which gave gov’t a windfall be a reason for our current economic woes.”