Terkper reveals lessons he picked from Finance Minister’s censure hearing

• Posted on November 23, 2022November 23, 2022
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Former Finance Minister Seth Terkper has revealed the lessons he learnt from proceedings during the hearing of the censure motion against his successor Ken Ofori-Atta by the 8-member committee.

Mr Ofori-Atta appeared before the committee on Friday November 19 to respond to allegations made against him by the Minority for which they filed the motion to get him removed from office.

He said among other things that the proponents of the motion should not confuse Contingency vote with Contingency Fund with respect to funding for the National Cathedral project.

He said funds were taken from the Contingency Vault for the cathedral and not from the Contingency Fund as is being alleged by the Minority.

Mr Ofori-Atta said these while denying allegation that he withdrew funds from the Contingency Fund for the National Cathedral project when he appeared before the 8-member committee on Friday November 18.

The Contingency Fund and the Contingency Vote, he said, are two different things altogether which should not be confused.

“I did not withdraw funds from the Contingency Fund for National Cathedral,” he told the committee on Friday November 18.

He added “The withdrawals were lawfully done from the Contingency Vote and not from the Contingency Fund as alleged by the proponents.”

The NDC Minority in Parliament made a number of allegations against Mr Ofori-Atta for which they are seeking to remove him from Office.

The accusations are “Despicable conflict of Interest ensuring that he directly benefits from Ghana’s economic woes as his companies receive commissions and other unethical contractual advantage.

Unconstitutional withdrawals from the Consolidated Fund in blatant contravention of Article 178 of the 1992 Constitution supposedly for the construction of the President’s Cathedral;

Deliberate and dishonest misreporting of economic data to Parliament Fiscal recklessness leading to the crash of the Ghana Cedi which is currently the worst performing currency in the world;

Alarming incompetence and frightening ineptitude resulting in the collapse of the Ghanaian economy and on excruciating cost of living crisis; Gross mismanagement of the economy which has occasioned untold and unprecedented hardship.

Mr Ofori-Atta refuted all these allegations when he appeared before the 8-member committee that was investigating him.

In a tweet reacting to this development, Mr Terkper said “Censure hearing lesson: as accountant, saddest is discourse on how to record transactions in Budget & Public Accounts. The PRMA [and b4 it, FAA] calls for “accrual” [to replace “cash”] basis. Feasible with about 300 QUALIFIED Accountants in CAGD, GRA, Audit Service, IAA.”

He added “Also, Cathedral is well-designed & planned w/ expert costing/mgt. In accounting, difficult to see anything “contingent” (i.e., accidental or unpreditable) about its implementation. The best fiscal process for multi-year costs is the Medium-term Expenditure Feamework (MTEF).”

By Laud Nartey