PAC Chair Worried About Mobile Money Payment System For LEAP And School Feeding Programmes

Chairman for the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, Hon. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has cautioned the mobile money mode adopted by the Gender and Social Protection Ministry to transfer monies to beneficiaries under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme and also caterers of the School Feeding Programme as not the best since it may encounter accountability challenges.

He expressed his worry in an interview on JOY FM; “I am worried about the mode of development taken by the Ministry of Gender and Social Protection to distribute monies to beneficiaries and as well as pay caterers of the School Feeding Programme through mobile money.”

“..When I heard that the Ministry for Gender have started doing mobile transfers to pay LEAP beneficiaries and School Feeding Programme caterers, I was asking what would auditors use to do their audit? So if we are not careful as a country we would come into contact with more complex reconciliation issues like we are seeing now in our finances,” he said.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Seth Terkper has assured that there won’t be any problem to encounter in the future concerning this, since a tracking system adopted by government would ensure accountability and value for money in all cases.