Citizens’ Coalition demonstrate against AG’s refusal to surcharge
Anti-graft Civil Society Organisation, Coalition for Democratic Accountability and Inclusive Governance, also known as Citizens’ Coalition has impressed on the Auditor-General to surcharge persons implicated in the 2019 and 2020 Auditor-General’s reports.
The coalition which consists of over 34 Civil Society Organisations and some prominent personalities in Ghana today hits the streets of Accra, mounting intense pressure on Ghana’s Auditor General to immediately exercise the power of surcharge and disallowances, drawing his attention that his continues failure to carry out the constitutionally mandated duty is in contempt of the Supreme Court.
The CSO is if the view that if the Auditor-General is able to recover such monies lost through various financial infractions and irregularities at the MDAs, the country may shelve its plans of seeking an IMF bailout.
“If you add 2020 and 2019, you will get about GHc48 billion. The amount of money we’re going to the IMF for is how much? If you convert it you’re talking less the one of these years. In other words if he’d retrieved any of the amounts from 2019, 2020, 2021, we do not need to go to the IMF. Does that make sense? The maths is simple, GHc 48bn irregularities – monies lost in three years, the amount you’re going for from the IMF is about a third of that. If the Auditor-General retrieves these monies, do we need to go to the IMF?
“If we are able to retrieve these sums of money it makes our economy much more stable. If the Auditor-General performs we’ll not have to run around looking for loans,” one of the conveners of the coalition told Starr Fm ahead of a protest in Accra.
Ghana’s government is in talks over a loan of about $3 billion from the International Monetary Fund.
The government began discussions with the Washington-based multilateral lender in July, reversing a pledge by President Akufo-Addo’s administration not to seek a financial program from the IMF.
Ghana has been battling to stabilize a debt pile that increased to 78.3% of gross domestic product at the end of June from 62.5% five years ago.
There is a good reason why you should support the African Editors. Not everyone can afford to pay for news right now. That is why we keep our journalism open for everyone to read, including in Ghana. If this is you, please continue to read for free. But if you are able to, then there are three good reasons to support us today.
1. Our quality, journalism is a scrutinising force at a time when the rich and powerful are getting away with more and more.
2. We are independent and have no billionaire owner pulling the strings, so your money directly powers our reporting.
3. It doesn’t cost much, and takes less time than it took to read this message.
Help power the African Editors' journalism for the years to come, whether with a small sum or a larger one. If you can, please support us on a monthly basis from just 1 Ghana Cedi through mobile money number: 0599896099/ +23359989609 and you can be rest assured that you’re making a big impact every single month in support of open, independent journalism. Thank you.
