GHC 50m disbursed out of the GHC 60m received in the Covid-19 National Trust Fund
The Committee for the Covid-19 National Trust Fund has indicated that the Fund received an amount of GHC 60m which a little under GHC 50m has been disbursed across the country.
It noted that the GHC 50m was disbursed to the various districts across the country for the procurement of covid-19 related items.
The committee’s comment comes as a reaction to some findings made by the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) on the accountability of the Covid-19 National Trust Fund and the expenditures made.
‘’I think first of all, I have to start by saying that we have to put things in the right perspectives.the covid-19 national trust fund has received a total of GHC60m and we have disbursed a little under GHC50m,” noted the Administrator of the Fund.
According to the findings, some amount of GHC236,280 was allocated to MMDA’s for covid related expenditures in 2020 while there was no allocation of funds to them in 2021 and 2022.
The findings also noted that the MMDA’s were asked to use their DACF for covid related expenditures in 2021 and 2022.
Speaking further on the findings of the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC), the Administrator for the Covid-19 National Trust Fund Committee, noted that all the various district in the country had their fair share of the funds and auditing was done across the country to confirm it.
‘’We the trust fund wrote to the Auditor General’s Department and the audit service to come and audit us and they sent four gentlemen, and they sat with us for about 3 months, and after their audit they revealed that close to some GHS 50m was spent, and this is to those who worry as to whether there was performance evaluation and so on.
“I tell you the four gentlemen toured the whole of the country because we did go to distribute PPEs in selected government hospitals across the country,” he stated.
The findings also highlight that there is little or no show of existence of some funds disbursed between April and december 2020 to procure medical equipment and PPE’s as well as the construction of the 100-bed national infectious disease center at Ga-East Municipal Hospital.
Further more, the findings showed that the Trust Fund spent some amount of money on the production and broadcast of an educational TV and radio series on the Covid-19 pandemic titled ‘’corona life’’ by inGenius Africa in 2020 and 2021 which surprisingly has not been viewed or made known to the majority of Ghanaian.
Lastly, the cash donation by the public reduced drastically from GHC56.6m in April to GHC3.2m to December 2021 (within a period of 17 nonths), which has raised several concerns.
