Hannah Serwah Tetteh
(JollofNews) – Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, Kwaku Agyeman Manu has accused the government of spending monies meant for the families of Ghanaians killed in The Gambia some eleven years ago.
Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Minister, Hannah Serwah [ads1]Tetteh told Parliament that some Ghc280,000 outstanding monies being the remaining part of compensations paid by The Gambian government to the families of Ghanaians killed in that country in 2005 has been lodged in the Consolidated Fund.
She made this known when she appeared before Parliament to answer a question posed by the MP for Jaman South, Yaw Maamah Afful, on whether the government has finished disbursing the US$500,000 compensation money.
She revealed that the committee established to go into it paid only twenty-seven families who could be verified after investigations.
Two bodies repatriated to Ghana after the incident, she said, could not be identified as well.
But the PAC Chairman said if the Minister claims the amount has been lodged in the consolidated fund, then government has spent it because the audited account of the Consolidated Fund indicate negative.
“Government might have used the money because there is no money in the consolidated account now…the ghost money has been spent…,” he said in an interview.
He claimed that the balance sheet of consolidated account showed that government has over-spent monies in the account hence running the account into red.