Delay in release of statutory payments: Minority Chief Whip slams govt
The Minority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, has expressed concern about the delay in the release and disbursement of statutory funds for the efficient running of critical state bodies.
He cited the delay in the release of second-quarter payments to Parliament, disbursements to the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF), the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund).
“As I speak, contractors and other legitimate payments are not being done and it could be one of the reasons why the cedi is performing well against the United States dollar,” he told journalists in Parliament last Thursday.
Make payments
He, therefore, urged the Finance Minister to make the required statutory payments urgently.
“You have introduced taxes, you have collected these taxes and yet you are flouting the statutory payment that the law mandates you to pay,” he noted.
“If the DACF is not released, the assemblies are denied the oxygen to do local governance, health insurance is not being paid, GETFund is not being paid and everybody is quiet. I want to ask questions. Where are the taxes the administration has collected?” he said.
Breach
He said the government stood in breach of the Local Government Act, Act 936, by denying the assemblies the “oxygen they need to function.”
Mr Annoh-Dompreh noted that “not a dime” of the GH¢7.1 billion allocated to the “assemblies has been paid.
“I visited the Common Fund secretariat and the administrator was just idling around because nothing was happening. The ruling government is doing all the evil things under its first year just because of the goodwill it is enjoying,” he said.
Context
At the passage of the last budget, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson promised to pay 80 per cent of the releases directly to the assemblies and not channel it through the Members of parliament as it was previously done.
The Local Act mandates the finance ministry to make quarterly releases to the assemblies to function. But the new government has yet to take action.
