It has emerged that about GHS4.6million (C46billion) of the money voted for the recently crated 46 District assemblies was spent on the inaugural ceremony including durbars and refreshment.

This came to light during the consideration of the budget estimate for the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in Parliament last Tuesday.

The revelation generated a huge controversy when a ranking member of the select committee on Local Government and Rural Development, Kwasi Ameyaw-Cheremeh, told the house that a chunk of the GHC16 million approved by Parliament in 2012 for basic infrastructural development of the new districts created by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was used for fanfare at the inaugural ceremonies of those assemblies.

Most of the new assemblies are said to be distressed because of inadequate resources.

Former Local Government and Rural Development Minister Samuel Ofosu Ampofo is fingered for the misapplication of funds and might be hauled before a parliamentary committee to explain how the gargantuan money was spent on chop chop.

He has, however, rubbished the allegations insisting that they are without any basis and has, therefore, asked his accusers to cross check their facts.

Speaking to the motion for the Local Government Ministry’s estimate of GHS447,495,901, Ameyaw-Cheremeh, who is the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Sunyani East, said the immediate past finance minister in presenting the budget last year indicated that each of 46 newly-created districts and municipalities would be given a seed money of GHC1million for the provision of immovable infrastructure for the new districts but reports from the ministry stated that part of the money, totaling GHC4.6million, was used for the inaugural ceremonies of those district assemblies.

According to the Sunyani East MP, the seed money was solely budgeted for the provision of infrastructure for the new districts and not for inaugural ceremonies and so it meant that there had been misapplication of public funds.

He, therefore, called for proper investigations into the issue to avoid the misuse of public funds.

The Sunyani East MP also revealed in Parliament that a Ministry was indebted to caterers of the government’s school feeding programme to the tune of GHS21,366,000 but the 2013 estimates did not capture the settlement of the arrears.

“The school feeding programme is facing serious challenges because of the increase in the prices of petroleum products which have affected food prices as well,” he said, explaining that the food being served in the schools now have low nutritional value as compared to the time of the NPP.

“We want to call on the government to pay more attention to the school feeding programme and pay caterers on time so that the programme could be sustained and objective for implementing the programme would be realised,” he said.

In seconding the motion, the Chairman of the committee, National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Garu, Dominic Azumah, indeed confirmed that GHS100,000 was given to each of the 46 new districts as a start-up money some of which was intended to be used for the provision of basic infrastructure like office and accommodation for staff as well as for the organisation of the inaugural ceremonies.

He said out of the GHS42milliion budgeted for the operations of the new districts only GHC16milion was released by the Finance Ministry.

According to the committee chairman, out of the GHS16million, GHS4.6million was given to the districts as a start-up money while the remaining GHC11.4million was used for the acquisition of vehicles for the districts.

He said the impression being created that GHS4.6million was solely used for the organisation of the inaugural ceremonies was not correct.

The Majority Chief Whip and NDC Member of Parliament for Asawase, Muntaka Mubarak, also told Parliament the GHS100,000 that was supposedly used for the inaugural ceremonies of the new districts was taken from common funds of the assembly.

Parliament eventually approved the budget estimate for the ministry.