Govt spending is unconstitutional -Doe Adjaho

Papa Owusu-Ankomah, the Majority Leader and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs on Tuesday directed Mr Doe Adjaho to use the appropriate channel to seek clarification on matters, which he was accusing the government for acting unconstitutionally in spending money without first coming to Parliament for approval.

He said Mr Adjaho had raised some of the points on last year's budget, which the Finance Minister had explained extensively and yet he was still referring to those matters in this year's budget.

Papa Owusu-Ankomah, who was raising a point of order on the contribution of Mr Adjaho, said the member could come by way of a question to the Minister of Finance to explain to the House.

Quoting Article 176 of the Constitution, which authorises Parliament as the only body to vote expenditure for the government, Mr Adjaho said it was right for the government to equip the Police but that it was wrong for it to begin buying vehicles for the service without Parliamentary approval.

Mr Adjaho contributing to the 2002 budget debate quoted the Minister of Finance, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo as stating in the document that "government recently acquired 50 vehicles for the Police at with very concessional terms with the intervention of the President of Nigeria."

Mr Adjaho said this transaction was not channelled through Parliament and accused the NPP government for acting unconstitutionally adding, "I am surprised the budget did not tell us where they are getting the money from".

He said when he checked from various sources there was only "money on vote" of 840 dollars, which could only buy eight of the 50 Peugeot cars that the government has already bought for the Police.

Mr Adjaho asked where did the government get the money from and at that juncture Mr J. H. Mensah, Senior Minister interrupted and asked Mr Adjaho "where did the money the MPs were to buy their cars come from".

Mr Adjaho further accused the government for establishing the Emergency Relief Social Fund and Women Development Fund without passing it through Parliament and asked whether the money to generate the fund were not coming from the Consolidated Fund.

He said last year government paid 5,474.5 billion cedis on external debt and was to pay 6,894.6 this year while the country had adopted the highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative and that debt payment should rather decrease and should not be on the increase. "Under the HIPC we are not paying any debts and if we are servicing debt why should the debt servicing be growing higher?" Mr Adjaho asked.