General News of Friday, 19 March 2010

Source: GNA

GETFund needs holistic review 96 Dep. Finance Minister

Accra, March 19, GNA - Mr Seth Terkpeh, Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, on Thursday said the cedi's depreciation worsened the situation of a bad budget practice in the disbursement of the GETFund by the previous administration. He said it was only when the GETFund (Ghana Education Trust Fund) was reviewed holistically that Ghana could find answers to most questions regarding its administration.

Mr Terkpeh said this in reaction to a question by Mr Ofuso Asamoah, member for Kade, who wanted to know how much money had been released to the GETfund since January 2007 to September 2009. He said an amount of A2496,101,558.32 was released to the GETFund Secretariat between January 2007 and September 2009. Mr Terkpeh said in 2007 an amount of A2161,332,660 was released, 2008 had an amount of A2224,442,843 and A2110,326,055.32 was released in 2009.

When asked by Dr Anthony Akoto, member for Old Tafo that the GETFund Administration said it had received only 100 million Ghana cedis, Mr Terkpeh explained that the government inherited an accumulation of arrears for the previous years, some of which were cleared but others were not made known. Mr Terkpeh said in 2009, A2242.005 million cedis was released and from September 2009 to early this year further A2142 million was released.