General News of Wednesday, 25 April 2018Source: classfmonline.comHamid's 'GHC3billion Mahama Jubilee House staff budget' big lie – MinorityCassiel Ato Forson is Ranking Member, Finance Committee of ParliamentThe Minority has denied claims by Information Minister Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid that the Office of Government Machinery (OGM) under the erstwhile John Mahama administration was allocated GHS3billion in 2016 as against GHS1.5billion under President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for 2017. The Minority has described Dr Abdul-Hamid’s statement as “a desperate effort to justify the unconscionable packing of the presidency with activists of the NPP leading to the submission of a list of 998 presidential staff and evade the intense public anger that has greeted the publication of the list.”Nana Akufo-Addo’s spokesperson, reacting to critics who say 998 presidential staffers as presented to parliament by the president is a huge burden on the public purse, said, although the current government’s list is taller than ex-president Mahama’s, the Akufo-Addo government is spending half the amount used in paying Mr Mahama’s staff. “Our list, for example, is a little above the President Mahama list but if you look at the budget for office machinery under President Mahama, it is way above our budget,” he told Accra-based Joy FM on Monday, 23 April, adding: “For 2017, they had about GHS3 billion but we came in 2017 with about GHS1.5 billion”. "Regarding expenditure, the Akufo-Addo government also stated on the same page that "The total expenditure as at 31st December, 2016 stood at GHS 1,306,325,076.23.However OGM’s Total expenditure at the end of December, 2015 was GHS 799,731,387.07. "Furthermore, the Finance Committee of Parliament in its report on the 2017 budget estimates stated in section 3.8 at page 6 that " For the implementation of the various programmes and activities, a total amount of Seven Hundred and Nineteen Million, One Hundred and Eight Thousand, Nine Hundred and Eleven Ghana Cedis (GHS 719,108,911) was released to the office of Government Machinery for the 2016 financial year.

Source: GhanaWeb April 25, 2018 07:30 UTC