Minority expose Sanitation Ministry over GHS18K entertainment 'allawa'

Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for Bodi Constituency in the Western Region, Mr Sampson Ahi, has raised red flags over an GHS18,000 allocation for the Ministry of Water and Sanitation’s entertainment allowance in the ministry's 2019 budget.

According to the Ranking Member of the Works and Housing Committee, who is also protesting the GHS18,000 allocation for clothing allowance said there can be no justification for the allocations.

Apart from the budget for entertainment and clothing, there is also an allocation of GHS36,000 for watchmen, which the Minority raised issues about.

This came to the fore during the debate of the ministry’s budgetary allocation of GHS246 million for the 2019 financial year in parliament on Wednesday, 12 December 2018.

Contributing to the debate, Mr Ahi said: “Whereas we are calling for support and investments into the water sector, I want to urge the ministry to actually look at the way they are spending the meagre resources allocated to them. For instance, if you look at the budget, they have stated that they are going to recruit; that is, enlistment into security, and there they are spending GHS81,000. I don’t know the sort of security enlistment they are going to do.

“Entertainment allowance is GHS18,000, [there is] domestic servant allowance, motor vehicle is GHS716,000, computers and accessories is GHS100,000… So, I think the ministry must look at the way they manage the meagre allowance”.

Speaking to journalist later, Mr Ahi called on the Sanitation Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah to focus on the core mandate of the ministry and desist from what he saw as unnecessary expenses.

He said: “Investment into the water sector under Nana Akufo-Addo has reduced drastically. In 2016, the urban water coverage was 76 per cent and rural water coverage was 75 per cent. In this year’s budget, they have told us that investment into the water sector has reduced from the 76 per cent for urban to 71.1 per cent and the rural, from 75 per cent to 69 per cent, which means we are denying a lot of Ghanaians from accessing potable water, so, my point is that whatever resources you are given, you use it judiciously. But what do we see?

“We are giving money to the minister as entertainment allowance, watchman allowance and extra watchman allowance… You have clothing allowance. When I was there, I never saw clothing allowance. Entertainment to do what? What form of entertainment…? he quizzed.