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General News of Thursday, 21 March 2013
Source: citifmonline
AMA is not misappropriating funds - Nuumo Blafo
Public Relations officer of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Nuumo Blafo III has disputed media reports suggesting that the Assembly is misappropriating funds.
It was reported in the Tuesday March 19th edition of the Daily Graphic that the Accra Metropolitan Assembly had squandered over GHS1.4million on sitting allowances for Assembly members in the past year.
Speaking to Citi FM, Nuumo Blafo III noted that the amount indicated in the paper was blown out of proportion.
“When we have general assembly meetings, we are not talking about ordinary members. We are talking about heads of departments, heads of sub metros, secretaries and recorders and the assembly has over 42 decentralized bodies apart from the 16 heads of departments,” he stated.
Nuumo Blafo further stated: “These heads of department also double as secretaries to sub committees so you can see the large number of people we are talking about.”
“The Assembly members take sitting allowance but when it comes to lunch, these sub metro directors, heads of departments, heads of these decentralized, recorders and secretaries are all given the lunch. All these monies are calculated,” he added.
According to Tuesday's edition of the Daily Graphic, committee meetings and general assembly sittings of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) held in 2012 alone cost the assembly GHs1.4 million (14 billion old cedis).
The amount covered allowances for transportation (T&T), sitting and lunch; and was more than total revenue generated at the AMA?lorry parks, which was GH¢1.3 million, and market tolls of GH¢888,000.
This was contained in the Financial Statement of the AMA signed by the Coordinating Director and the Director of Finance of the assembly.
When contacted, the Director of Finance declined to comment on the issue.
A top official of the assembly, however, indicated that the expenditure was likely to increase this year as eight general assembly meetings had already been held three months into the year.
