The government’s avowed aim of reducing public expenditure by cutting down on cost is being undermined by certain ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

For instance, telephone bills alone between January and December 2001 accumulated by the MDAs was over ?1 billion. The bills do not include that incurred collectively by ministers, their deputies and special assistants. Ministries such as Lands and Forestry, Foreign Affairs, Defence, Local Government and Rural Development, Health and Justice have been cited in a special investigations aimed at plugging the loopholes to cut down cost.

Others are Finance, the Interior, Environment and Science, Youth and Sports Minister and the Department of Cooperatives. These were contained in documents compiled by the Ministry of Finance and sighted by The Evening News. It put the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as expected, on top of the list of Ministries with the highest telephone usage with a bill of ?390 million followed by the Ministry of Finance with ?383 million.

The Finance Ministry’s bill for the month of July 2001 alone was ?273 million. The Ministry of Lands and Forestry’s telephone bills stood at ?214 million, followed by the Ministry of Health, 207 million, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development ?108 million, Ministry of Health ?53 million, Ministry of Youth and Sports ?57 million. It put the Ministry of Defence telephone bills at ?13 million, the Ministry of Environment and Science ?47 million, the Women Affairs Ministry ?10 million, Ministry of Justice ?21 million and the Department of Cooperatives ?2 million.

These figures, according to sources contacted may even rise further since some of the bills of the MDAs for some particular months are yet to be received. When the government took over the administration of the country last year 2001, the Evening News’ investigations led to the discovery of a total bill of ?11.8 billion left behind by six Ministries as at 2 February 2001.

The amount was a total carried over bills from 1999 and that of year 2000. It was further discovered that some individual Ministers left behind huge personal bills, which were later picked up by the government and paid from the consolidated fund. It said the misuse of telephone in the MDAs was so alarming that something radical needs to be done to curtail the situation.

The source said the huge telephone bills coming from the various MDAs was an indication of the level of wastage in the system. Soon after the government assumed office amidst allegations of huge telephone bills left behind by former Ministers and the various Ministries, it was the expectation of the public that the government and its functionaries would take a cue from the past conduct official business, conscious of the dire financial circumstances of the nation.

This is, however, proving to be a Herculean task.