John Kumah
Deputy Minister of Finance, John Ampontuah Kumah has refuted claims made by IMANI Ghana that, the Ministry of Finance is the most fiscally reckless institution in Ghana with the highest level of fiscal recklessness between 2015 and 2020 by describing the report as a “Poor Job”.
According to a Research Consultant with Imani, Dennis Asare at the recent launch of the Fiscal Recklessness Index 2020 report the Ministry recorded more than GH¢11 billion in losses to the state.
This was contained in data from the Fiscal Recklessness Index 2020 report which ranked financial irregularities for Ministries, Departments, and Agencies within the five years.
Mr. Asare said the report shows that the Ministry has consistently appeared as the most reckless institution.
However, the Deputy Minister, Dr. Kumah reacting to the story said “IMANI did a poor job on its fiscal recklessness report and only rehashed an Auditor General’s report”.
The Deputy Minister setting the record straight on the IMANI report notes that the Think Tank report is very deceptive and misleading.
According to him, IMANI failed to take into account other material facts like how part of the GHC 11 billion it referred to has been recovered and legal action taken against people and organizations.
“It is also worthy to mention that the basis for this classification by IMANI Ghana emanates from the Auditor General’s reports which have been widely misinterpreted and abused to create an impression that the nation has lost some billions when as a part of fact, this is not the case”.
“The Auditor General’s report per its reporting structure did not account for the funds recovered, even though the Government had taken steps to address the losses and recover the money”.
“In summary, IMANI did a poor job when it failed to go beyond the Auditor General’s report to establish the actual reasons for these losses and whether or not the said amount has been refunded”.
“I provided some analysis on GHC12 billion losses reported by the auditor and why the state had not entirely lost the said GHC12 billion” Dr. Kumah concluded.
BY Daniel Bampoe