He further called on the President to direct the Auditor General to audit the accounts of the committee.

“I call on President Akufo-Addo to subject the GH@60 Secretariat to a special audit by the Auditor General if he wants to salvage his government’s sinking image in the fight against corruption. The President has the power to refer special cases for audit to the Auditor General,” he said in statement.

The 30-member Ghana@60 committee was formed in 2017 prior to Ghana’s 60^th independence day celebration, to oversee the organization of programmes for the celebration.

President Akufo-Addo had during the formation committee charged the team to generate an amount of GHc20 million as budget for the programmes and projects from sponsorship by corporate entities.

But a year down the line, Chairman of the Committee, Ken Amankwah, has told Citi News that the Committee was unable to achieve most of its ambitious programmes last year [2017] due to the lack of funds.

Some of the projects included the building of 60 libraries in deprived areas across all 10 regions in the country.

But Brogya Genfi, who believes the committee received enough funds from corporate entities in a statement said an audit will help unravel other details about the committee’s work.

[contextly_sidebar id=”O6tvy0LO3zcQ69w581Bnrzq4eAoDbDge”]Brogya Genfi in the statement said there were a number of donations from corporate Ghana to support the projects by the committee hence the excuse by the Chairman could not be accepted.

“A cursory additions of financial support extended by the private sector from media reports (excluding donations in private) points to the fact that the Ghana @60 Secretariat got more than enough funds to execute all their plans.”

“The ‘cock and bull’ stories made up by the Secretariat give more credence to my call for a special audit to be commissioned by His Excellency President Akufo-Addo using the Auditor General of Ghana. We all thought that any NPP government would have been guided by the bizarre experience of the Ghana @50 celebration and its expenditure. Unfortunately for Ghanaians, they (NPP) are still on their old ways of dissipating public funds and mostly using public good as a decoy to extort huge cash from the unsuspecting private sector,” the statement added.

Ghana@60 c’ttee tried procuring Ghana flags from China

The 60th Independence Anniversary Planning Committee flirted with the idea of procuring Ghana flags from China before ultimately shelving the idea because of time constraints.
This is according to

Ken Amankwah had said they almost procured some Ghana flags which was supposed to be used to commemorate the 60th anniversary from China

Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Amankwah said these flags were originally being printed from China “but we couldn’t bring them down from there so we had to fall on local printers and they couldn’t meet the quantities they wanted.”

Find below for Brogya Genfi’s full statement:

Auditor General must audit GH@60 Secretariat

I call on President Akufo-Addo to subject the GH@60 Secretariat to a special audit by the Auditor General if he wants to salvage his government’s sinking image in the fight against corruption.

The President has the power to refer special cases for audit to the Auditor General.

We all remember when the President mentioned that the GH@60 project will be a year long project with a budget of GHC20million. And that, NO PUBLIC FUNDS will be expended on the Anniversary Events and projects.

He again mentioned, that they were going to build 6 Libraries in each region – making up 60 Libraries in all across the country.

Again, the Secretariat informed Ghanaians that they will organise a Jubilee Technology Start-up Challenge and many other things. None of these promises have been fulfilled even though their mandate has expired since we are now in Ghana @61.

In spite of the public outcry of the large size of the committee members (30 members), the President assured the nation of value for money.

We as Ghanaians have been vindicated since the 30 member committee has nothing to show for now.

There were several contributions from the private sector in addition to the releases from the Ministry of Finance and the Districts Assemblies’ Common Fund Secretariat amounting to over GHC5million.

This clearly indicates that over 25% of the budget for the Ghana @60 Secretariat was funded using Public funds.

A cursory additions of financial supports extended by the private sector from media reports (excluding donations in private) points to the fact that the Ghana @60 Secretariat got more than enough funds to execute all their plans.

The ‘cock and bull’ stories made up by the Secretariat give more credence to my call for a special audit to be commissioned by His Excellency President Akufo-Addo using the Auditor General of Ghana.

We all thought that any NPP government would have been guided by the bizarre experience of the Ghana @50 celebration and it’s expenditure.
Unfortunately for Ghanaians, they (NPP) are still on their old ways of dissipating public funds and mostly using public good as a decoy to extort huge cash from the unsuspecting private sector.

Below are some of the supports from the Private Sector which were made public:

http://citifmonline.com/2017/03/03/gcnet-supports-ghana-60-with-250000-cedis/

http://citibusinessnews.com/index.php/2017/03/01/omnibank-donates-to-ghana60-committee/

https://mobile.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/BOST-CEO-incurs-wrath-of-unpaid-staff-over-GHS1m-Ghana-60-donation-518345

https://mobile.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Ghana-60-EIB-Express-Capital-donate-to-committee-513002

https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/unibank-supports-ghana-60-celebrations-with-gh-300-000.html

https://www.graphic.com.gh/business/business-news/sahel-sahara-bank-supports-ghana-60-with-gh-100-000.html

https://www.myjoyonline.com/business/2017/march-15th/beige-supports-ghana-60-with-ghs-60000.php

https://mobile.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Ghana-60-3-individuals-donate-Ghc3-000-000-each-to-committee-513017

It is my prayer that the President will heed to this and similar calls for accountability in this matter in order to restore Public confidence in his acclaimed war on corruption, which is fast becoming a mere rhetoric.

Yaw Brogya Genfi
(ASHANTI REGIONAL YOUTH ORGANIZER – NDC)

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

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