Trades Minister, Alan Kyeremanten has revealed a total sum of GHC31,500 was released to the Ghana Expatriate Business Awards (GEBA) Planning Committee as sitting allowance.

The Minister disclosed the money included taxes paid to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) on the allowances.

The amount of GHC18,000 was first released followed by GHC13,500. Also, the sum of GHC10,000 was disbursed for press facilitation.

Mr Kyeremanten disclosed this, when he appeared before the Cash-for-seat Investigative Committee, tasked to establish if monies were extorted from expatriates during the event.

In a seven-hour long sitting Friday, Mr Kyerematen was grilled on issues ranging from the Trades Ministry’s partnership with the Millennium Excellence Foundation (MEF) and the use of funds raised from the event.

On the disbursement of funds, the Trades Minister explained that in line with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) anytime a request was made by the Foundation, it was weighed on merit and then authorized.

Mr Kyeremanten stated he requested the event funds to be lodged in the Ministry’s account for the purposes of accountability and transparency.

The amount of GHS2,667,215 was raised from the event but it was released on a need basis, he said, disclosing the Chief Director of the Ministry was given GHS3,000 to facilitate a retreat.

Mr Kyeremanten, however, said the monies were not extorted from expatriate businesses during the event as has been claimed by the Minority.

But speaking to Evans Mensah on Joy FM’s Top Story, Minority Chief Whip Muntaka Mubarak said there is more to the Trades Minister’s account of events.

“If you ask people to bring specific documentation and they bring you list of people who have paid what are they running away from?” he asked.

He added he has supplied the investigative committee with the relevant documents to back his claim of wrongdoing, expressing confidence a bipartisan work will be done.