Financial Analyst and social commentator, Sydney Casely-Hayford, has stated that President John Mahama’s ‘Accounting to the People’ tour is shallow and lacks substance.
According to him, true accountability should be detailed to offer a holistic account of how state funds have been expended.
[contextly_sidebar id=”jF8gbhtBA1YmETyNl5dpS0zUkOaoyisQ”]President Mahama is currently visiting the regions in an initiative dubbed “Accounting to the People” tour.
The tour is to afford the President the opportunity to highlight to the people some of the projects executed by his administration.
But speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis and current affairs programme, ‘The Big Issue’ on Saturday, Sydney Casely-Hayford acknowledged the importance of such exercises saying it was an ethical obligation on the part of government to account for the use of public funds.
“When you take people’s taxes and you use it to do something for their purpose, you are actually deploying state funds to execute the programme… When you do that, you are ethically bound to tell the people what the funds were used for.”
He however noted that the President was not being truthful by failing to account for the sources of the funding and the financial implications for the country going forward.
“It’s not just about telling them that we have done a road. It’s about explaining to people where the money came from and how long it is going to take to pay back so they know exactly how much burden you have put on their purse going forward. You cannot do this shallow accounting and just tell people we have done roads for you,” Mr. Casely Hayford argued in his assessment of the President tour.
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmnline.com/Ghana