Investigations by the New Free Press and information gained from sources at the Castle have revealed that The NDC Government led by President John Atta Mills spent 45.6 million Ghana cedis on its government communications team from January 2011 to December 2011.

This amount which is more than the government entire spending on health and agriculture in the first six months of 2011, was given out to its communication teams across the country.

Below is a regional breakdown across the country in terms of allocation
REGION AMOUNT(MILLION GHANA CEDIS)

GREATER ACCRA 10.0
CENTRAL 7.0
VOLTA 7.5
ASHANTI 5.0
BRONG AHAFO 5.0
EASTERN 4.0
UPPER EAST 2.0
UPPER WEST 2.1
NORTHERN 2.0
WESTERN 1.0
TOTAL 45.6

For us at the New Free Press we believe our public accounts committee in parliament and especially the media have serious questions to ask about the way state funds are used in the country. We question the government priorities to the people if the money it spends on its government communication team nationwide is bigger on what it spends on education and agriculture.

The NDC is a party that has a communications and propaganda office at its party headquarters in Accra. It is headed by a gentleman called Mr Seth Ofori and also has Mr Richard Quarshigah as its propaganda secretary. We call on the government to come out and tell us if these men are on the government payroll or not and if so, why they are.

Are the members of the government communication team government officials on government payroll or party members who speak for the government paid through the government chest?

What is the point of spending huge sums of money on these individuals when there is an information services department, which has not even received its budgetary allocation for 2012?
For a country that still has terrible death trap roads, shortage of water supply, lack of public health facilities and resurrection of diseases like cholera and typhoid fever, our government needs to get its priorities right.


Roland Amankwanor
Senior investigative Editor
The New Free Press
Accra