Shut up if you benefited from the AFCON budget - Kwaku Yeboah tells journalits

Spokesperson of the Normalisation Committee, Dan Kwaku Yeboah, has hit out at journalists and officials who benefitted from the Black Stars’ AFCON budget and have turned around to criticize the expenditure.

According to him, all those who benefitted from the budget have no right to criticise and must, therefore, keep quiet.

“Some of the things have to be criticized but we should be realistic about it. The painful thing is that, some of them who are criticizing enjoyed part of the soup when they were in Egypt,” he said on Peace FM.

“But those days when we were talking about the budget, we didn’t accept any money because we didn’t want our name to be mentioned around it. So if you spent some of the money then you should keep quiet because it is hypocrisy.”

Dan Kwaku Yeboah further confirmed that he received per diems while in Egypt, but said he was given no winning bonuses, as suggested in certain quarters.

On Wednesday, July 24Sports Minister Isaac Asiamah disclosed that Ghana’s total expenditure at the tournament was $4.5million.

He said the country had budgeted $6.3million for the tournament but saved $1.7million after exiting at the last 16 stage.

Per the breakdown, $1.14million was spent on accommodation, while $8,541 was spent on visa fees.

Airfare accounted for $924,168, while per diems for players, technical staff and additional technical staff were $187,050, $129,600 and $90,750, respectively.

Meanwhile, feeding cost was $419,300, internal transportation was $43,092 and winning bonuses of players accounted for $965,405.

Many Ghanaians have been highly critical of the budget, describing it as outrageous and a waste of the tax payer’s money.