Gomoa Assembly denies "Ghanaian Voice" report

Apam, March 12, GNA - The Finance and Administration sub-committee of the Gomoa District Assembly has expressed serious concern about the false allegations in some sections of the media calculated to tarnish the image of the assembly.

The committee has also refuted allegations by the Ghanaians Voice newspaper captioned "MPs 250 million cedis vanished from Gomoa DCE's office" and Kufuor's in-law picks 235 million cedis free from Gomoa District Council" in its editions of March 1-3, 2003 and March 4-7, 2003 respectively.

Addressing a news conference at Apam on Thursday, Miss Joyce Aidoo, the District Chief Executive explained that monies allocated to the district never came in physical cash but were deposited in specific accounts at the banks.

The assembly was only informed in writing about the amount deposited and how it should be disbursed.

Miss Aidoo said it was not correct that 250 million cedis belonging to MPs vanished from her officer.

She explained further that 250 million cedis was lodged into the assembly's HIPC account at the Agona Swedru branch of the Agriculture Development Bank in two instalments of 100 million cedis in September 2003 and 150 million cedis in December 2003.

The DCE said instructions from the HIPC Fund Secretariat were that the money was to assist the MP for Gomoa East to implement projects for which he had submitted proposals and had met the conditions for accessing the fund.

She said so far the MP had disbursed 100 million cedis out of the amount.

The District Chief Executive in answering a question as to why the MP for Gomoa West who is an NDC MP was not given anything for her constituency, the DCE explained that before one could access the HIPC fund, a proposal had to be submitted and approved.

"I can not tell whether the MP for Gomoa West also submitted a proposal" she said adding that "since the money was for development I would have wished that the two MPs got something to enhance development of the district."

On the allegation of the 235 million cedis "picked free from the assembly by Kufuor's in-law," Miss Aidoo said "it was rather the president's in-Law's office (the senior Minister's office) which gave the assembly 235 million cedis for disbursement to peasant farmers as loans."

Miss Adioo said 530 farmers in the two constituencies received 400,000 cedis each while 70 others received 300,000 cedis each, adding that "There are records to prove that the amount had been disbursed to the farmers."

She said it was also not true that the assembly was processing another 360 million cedis for this year general elections.

Mr Fred Oscar Abban, Chairman of the assembly's Finance and Administration Sub-committee appealed to citizens, especially politicians to be careful about the information they divulged to the media since publications of false information could scare investors from doing business in the district.

Also present at the news conference were Mr Abraham Mensah, District Finance Officer, Mr Eric Akobeng, District Budget Analyst and Mr Gabriel Mfodjo, District Planning Officer.