Accra, Ghana, 6th February 2024…The attention of the Ministry of Finance has been drawn to publications by some media houses including Ghanaweb (Tuesday, 30th January 2024) alleging that, “Ofori-Atta took GHS77 million from the Contingency vault (vote) for football; GHS27.9 million was spent on Black Stars” – an allegation attributed to Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.
The said publications sought to create the impression that the Minister for Finance created an illegal Contingency Vote in 2023 and took money from the Contingency Vote without Parliamentary approval.
We wish to state categorically that these allegations are inaccurate and unfounded.
- It is incorrect to state that the Contingency Vote was illegally created by Hon. Ken Ofori-Atta in 2023. The Contingency Vote is always part of the Appropriation Bill which Parliament passes annually to support execution of national Budgets and therefore does not require the Ministry to go back for approval from Parliament to access it. This Vote enables Government to meet critical expenditure challenges which arise during budget implementation but are not covered by the approved and appropriated budget of Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
- However, there is also a Contingency Fund which is the creation of Article 177 of the 1992 Constitution and reiterated by Section 36 of the PFM Act (2016) Act 921. This Contingency Fund is set up with the approval of Parliament to enable the State cover urgent and unforeseen expenditure for which no allocation exists in the Annual Appropriation. A recent occasion during which this legislative provision was utilized was the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Hence, there is a clear distinction between the Contingency Vote and the Contingency Fund. For the avoidance of doubt and the education of the public, the Contingency Vote, unlike the Contingency Fund, does not require going back to Parliament for approval whenever there is need to access it. We hope that this also clarifies the fact that our public Finance architecture does not have any such nomenclature as Contingency ‘vault’.
We wish to assure our fellow Ghanaians that the Ministry of Finance continues to strictly adhere to the requirements of the Public Financial Management legislation and values the oversight role of Parliament. END
ISSUED BY THE PUBLIC RELATIONS UNIT
MINISTRY OF FINANCE
NEWS EDITOR