In the wake of millions of dollars stashed in the home of a former appointee of the government, an Afrobarometer round-9 survey has revealed that many Ghanaians are convinced that the country has lost a lot of significant portions of the Covid-19 funds to corruption.
According to the Ministry of Finance, GH¢5,853 million of the Covid-19 funds was sourced from the IMF, GH¢405.7 million from the AfDB, GH¢504 million from the EU, and GH¢10,000 million from the BOG Covid-19 Bonds, among others, which was why the Appendix 2A of the 2021 Budget Statement, indicated that total financing for 2020 was GH¢44,897.9 million.
In all, GH¢21,844,189,185.24 was mobilised to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana.
However, in a119-page long Auditor General’s report on Covid-19 expenditure, it highlighted irregularities in the management of some tranches of the funds.
Among them, were the payment of unapproved risk allowance at the ministry of information.
It appeared that “senior management staff and other supporting staff” of the ministry paid themselves a total amount of GH¢151,500.00 as COVID-19 risk allowance for coming to work during the lockdown period.”
Meanwhile, an Afrobarometer Round9 (R9) survey conducted in 2021/2023 explained that about 1,719 respondents representing 72.6% of the sample size confirms in the affirmative to a survey question of whether funds and resources that were available to the government for combating and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, was lost or stolen due to corruption.
It also revealed that, about 44.2% of the respondents are of the conviction that a lot of the Covid-19 funds received by the Ghanaian government has been consumed by corruption by the various state officials with about 28.2% opinionating that some of the funds were lost to corruption during the period.
Meanwhile, about 149 respondents representing 9.8% believed that none of the funds received from the various sources had a corruption tag on it.
As Ghanaians continue to pay Covid-19 Health Recovery levy of 1% on the supply/import of goods and services in the country, coupled with latest discovery of stash of Million in the house of a former Minister of Sanitation, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, the question continues to linger on whether the covid-19 funds were desperately shared among government appointees through corrupt activities or was prudently used for the benefit of the ordinary Ghanaian.
Source: ghananewsonline.com.gh