The Minority members in parliament would convene a public hearing to shed more light on the COVID-19 expenditure and the revelations made in the most recent Auditor General report.
Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, the recently appointed Minority Leader, made his first press conference as the head of the Minority Caucus on Thursday.
The tentative date for the public hearing to start is February 7, 2023, he told journalists.
The Auditor-General’s report revealed some infractions in government’s expenditure for Covid-19 from March 2020 to June 2022.
Some of the infractions that were uncovered include; paying a total of US$607,419.02 out of US$4,049,460.12 for the purchase of 26 ambulances that were never delivered, paying unapproved GH ₵151,500 by the Information Ministry to its staff as Covid insurance, and paying for $80 million worth of vaccines by the government that was never delivered, amongst others.
The Minority in Parliament in January of last year filed a motion for an inquiry into the expenditure made by the government since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
The motion was admitted by the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, but dismissed in February by the First Deputy Speaker, Joseph Osei-Owusu with explanation that such a bi-partisan committee is already provided for by the constitution via the office of the Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee.
