NPP government has failed Ghanaians - CJA

Accra, Nov. 19, GNA - The Committee for Joint Action (CJA) a pressure group on Wednesday criticized the government for its maladministration of the nation's economy and for not keeping faith with Ghanaians who voted them into power.

"The Kufuor administration has not kept its promise to the Ghanaian electorate to root out corruption in the system. Again, our position on the state of public accounts are derived from the Auditor General's Report on Public Accounts for 2006, which is the most recent report to be completed and submitted to parliament", said Mr. Kwesi Pratt, a leading member of the CJA.

Briefing the press on the Auditor -General's Report on the 2006 Ghana's Public Accounts Report, Mr. Pratt noted that whereas the Controller and Accountant General's Department stated that the nation's external debt stood at 18.3 trillion cedis as at the end of 2006, the records of Bank of Ghana gave 31 trillion cedis.

"As indicated by the Auditor-General, the country's external debt stock is an important factor in the determination of its financial health and this anomaly observed prevented this determination", he added.

According to the group whereas the Financial Regulations Act required that non-tax revenue be accounted for under eight specified headings, the government chose to put all of them under only three headings thereby disabling the Auditor-General from understanding the accounts.

He bemoaned the government's woeful debt recovery rate from the various business entities, adding that, 'the recovery rate of government loans from companies through government appointed recovery agencies was 0.66 percent and that of the Ministry of Finance itself was only 0.22 per cent.'

Mr. Pratt also expressed his dislike about the delays in transferring accrued funds into the GETFund and the NHIS Fund which had led to the mal-functioning of the funds.

The group also expressed its dislike about the Ministry of Finance's inability to provide the Bank of Ghana with information on foreign loans contracted or foreign grants received as stipulated in the Financial Administration Regulations of 2004. 19 Nov. 08