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GOVERNMENT HAS been accused of spending over GH¢ 15.14 million as interim payment for civil works under the 250 megawatts AMERI emergency power project at Aboadze in the Western Region without Parliamentary approval.

An amount of GH¢ 15,144, 563.85 has been captured in the 2015 annual report of the Petroleum Fund as “payment for the interim civil works under 250MW AMERI emergency power project at Aboadze in the Western Region.”

Ranking Member on Parliamentary Select Committee on Finance, Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei revealed this yesterday on the floor of Parliament while contributing to the debate to approve the 2016 budget estimates of other government obligations.

Dr. Osei said government keeps spending on programmes that have not been approved by Parliament and the use of GH¢ 15,144,563.85 as interim payment for civil works under 250MW AMERI emergency power project at Aboadze in the Western Region is one of them.

He further noted that it is not the best of practice to approve estimates without knowing the various programmes and activities the monies would be used for, adding that these cause the misappropriation of funds on activities such as the re-branding of buses.

According to the ranking member, the constitution requires Parliament to demand for programmes and activities before monies are disbursed.

The ranking member also noted that the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has not been approved by Parliament and thus urged the House to hold the Executive accountable for all the errors to avoid public backlash.

The Minority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, on his part also noted that it is important to have the programmes and activities presented to Parliament so they could perform their oversight role well.

Mr. Mensah-Bonsu stated that they are now approving 2015 activities for the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), adding that government is transferring GH¢ 1,198,103,849.00 into the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF) for 2016 financial year, but they do not know what the money would be used for.

But, the Majority Leader, Alban Bagbin indicated that the money would be used to fund various projects across the country.  

Mr. Bagbin further explained that the IMF programme is a credit facility to the Bank of Ghana and not the central government; hence, there was no need to seek parliamentary approval.

According to the report of the Finance Committee, an amount of GH¢ 1,198,103,849.00 is to be transferred into the GIIF for 2016 financial year in line with the provisions of the GIIF Act, 2015, Act (877) but “the projects for which the funds were allocated were not outlined in the budget.

“The committee is of the view that in subsequent years, the projects and programmes of the Fund should be submitted to Parliament along with the allocations for scrutiny and for accountability purposes,” the report said.

On allocation of petroleum subsidy, the report noted that a provision of GH¢ 50,000,000.00 has been “made for the payment of subsidies that would be in excess of what the cross subsidy in the petroleum price build-up caters for and subsidies on premix and residual fuels.”

For interest payments, an amount of GH¢ 10,490,600,361.00 has been provided to cater for the payment of interest with GH¢ 8,317,230,361.00 for domestic and GH¢ 2,173,370,000.00 for external debts.

According to the report the domestic interest was projected as total interest due on the existing stock of all domestic debts as indicated in the database on domestic debt plus an estimated interest on new domestic borrowing and other charges that would be due in 2016.

The committee further noted that an amount of GH ¢566,952,440.00 is to be transferred from the Annual Budget Funding Amount to the GNPC for its equity financing cost and its share of the Net Carried and Participating Interests in line with Section 7 of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act 2011, Act 815.

After deliberations, the House approved a sum of GH ¢29,932,834,212.00 for the government obligations and general government services for the 2016 financial year.