Show us what you used the $200million COVID 19 contingency fund for before asking for GH₵500m to fight drought -Minority tells Finance Ministry

The Ranking Member of the Finance Committee of Parliament and Member of Parliament (MP), for Bolga Central, Mr. Isaac Adongo, has raised several compliance issues regarding the Ministry of Finance’s request for GH₵500 million from the Contingency Fund to address the ongoing drought in Northern Ghana.

Reacting to the request in an interview with ab Accra based Citi FM on Wednesday, August 28, 2024, the Ranking Member of Parliament’s Finance Committee outlined three key concerns that must be resolved before the committee can approve the request.

His concerns include the status of previous advances, a detailed breakdown of beneficiaries, and the specific budget allocation for the requested funds.

Mr. Adongo explained that during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the committee approved a $200 million advance from the Stabilisation Fund to the Contingency Fund, which amounted to $1.2 billion at the time due to exchange rates. The committee has requested an update on the status of this advance and its replenishment.

The Bolga Central lawmaker also highlighted the need for a comprehensive breakdown of beneficiaries at the regional, district, and community levels for the GH₵500 million support, including identifying specific individuals who would benefit from the funds.

He stated that while the submitted budget outlines a total fiscal implication of GH₵8.36 billion, the committee is currently focused on the GH₵500 million request and, therefore, a detailed budget showing the specific allocation of the GH₵500 million to address the drought is required.

The Bolga Central MP emphasised that the committee has not yet decided on the request adding that the decision will depend on the provision of the requested data and the insights it provides.

“The committee unanimously agreed that certain compliance issues must be met with. 1. In 2020 during the COVID era, the committee was called upon at the time to advance an amount of $200million from the stabilisation fund into the contingency fund which at the time with exchange rate amounted to $1.2 billion. We requested that they furnish us with the status of that advance…We are four years into the disbursement of that $1.2billion. We requested the ministry to give us an update as to the status of the replenishment of those funds.

2. We requested that they provide us with a regional breakdown in addition to districts and community breakdown and possibly the people if they now have them, who will benefit from such support.

3. We noticed that the budget that they submitted to us was the budget for the entire fiscal implication of the action which is the GH¢8.36 billion but we are not funding the GH¢8.36 billion. We are funding GH¢500million.

And so we want to see the budget related specifically to how the funds of the GH¢500 million would be applied in dealing with the matter. So those are the concerns that we raised. The committee did not take a decision whether or not to approve it but we will take a decision subject to the provision of that data and the message that data communicate to the committee,” Mr. Adongo emphasized.