A leading member of the New Patriotic Party, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, is calling out the Ghana Audit Service to respond to claims that an amount of GH¢12 billion has been stolen by the incumbent government.
In 2021, the Auditor General’s report for 2020 showed that a whopping GH¢20 billion had been stolen or misappropriated by various ministries, departments and agencies between 2017 and 2019.
The report that covered three years, established that there were cash irregularities in ministries such as Education, Roads and Highways, Employment and Labour Relations, Health and other government agencies.
For instance, at the Ministry of Education, cash irregularities amounted to GH¢40 million while procurement irregularities were pegged at about GH¢10 million.
Since then, a number of NDC members have made comments about the revelation by the report.
The MP for North Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor for instance, once described the revelation as alarming.
“The monies we speak of are equivalent to the entire COVID-19 expenditure…. If we had this money, do you think we would have struggled to go to IMF, to go to World Bank or tax the people? No.
These are monies that have fallen through the cracks,” he said.
But in a recent tweet, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko has questioned why the Audit Service has been so silent on the matter for so long thereby allowing the NDC to go amok in peddling the ‘lies.’
“Will the Ghana Audit Service continue with their remarkably loud silence, leaving the NDC to continue spreading the serious lie that some GHS12 billion has been stolen according to the 2020 Auditor General’s report? A playback of 2008’s crass but well-crafted, effective mischief,” his tweet said.
Source: Ghanaweb.com