Policy Think Tank, Imani Africa, has joined calls for a probe into the government’s Covid-19 expenditure.

His call comes after the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, ordered the parliamentary committees on Finance and Health to investigate the management of Covid-19 expenditures in Ghana.

Speaking on Citi FM and Citi TV’s news and current affairs programme, The Big Issue, the President of Imani Africa, Franklin Cudjoe said the findings should bring finality to the matter.

“We had a situation where Sputnik vaccines were procured at 18 dollars instead of 10 dollars. From the get-go, that was when we should have started doing proper accounting. These figures have been presented, but there were items and incidents that should have made us go swiftly into action even before this day. [There have been instances of] cash irregularities and procurement irregularities. For me, I think there is a lot more to be done.”

The Minority in Parliament argued last Wednesday that they wanted an ad-hoc parliamentary committee to investigate the government’s expenditures, besides the account rendered by the Finance Minister.

But the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, contended that the Auditor General’s office would be the best agency to look into the expenditure.

Minister’s account
Ken Ofori-Atta noted that GH¢12 billion was expended to mitigate the effect of the pandemic.

Under this, GH¢1.5 billion was disbursed under the Support to Households Programme, GH¢1 billion was allocated to health response-supplies equipment and relief for health workers, GH¢600 million was released to begin the construction across the country and a further GH¢763.92 million has been released to continue the construction of the 111 district hospitals.

The government also programmed GH¢875 million for security operations, evacuation of Ghanaians stranded abroad, and coordination of MMDAs’ sanitation and disinfection exercises.