COVID-19 was a blessing to Ghana - Hassan Ayariga

The founder of the All People’s Congress (APC) party, Dr Hassan Ayariga, has asserted that the deadly covid-19 disease which ravaged the economies of the world was a “blessing to Ghana”.

Speaking on Angel FM’s Anopa Bofoↄ morning show on Friday, July 22, 2022, he said the devastating effects caused the country to receive lots of funds but due to mismanagement the blessing became a “deficiency”.

Be that as it may, it is unconfirmed how much money has been expended since the outbreak of the disease in the country, owing to Parliament’s investigation of figures provided by the government.

It would be recalled that the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, had indicated to Parliament that the government had accrued a total of GH₵18.1 billion to fight the pandemic of which some GH₵12 billion was spent between 2020 and 2021.

The figures have since been a subject of a debate leading to investigations by the Health and Finance Committee of Parliament following concerns raised by the Minority Caucus of the House on some inconsistencies noticed in the expenditures.

According to the leader of the caucus, Haruna Iddrisu, “data from the Ministry of Finance tells us that an amount of GH₵17.7 billion or 4.7% of GDP according to President Akufo-Addo went into Covid-19 fight since 2020”.

“That was what President Akufo-Addo told Ghanaians, but Ken Ofori Atta has come to tell us that he mobilised GH₵18.1 billion but he spent GH₵12 billion,” he added.

“This shows inconsistency in the total figures government spent so between Finance Minister’s GH₵12 billion and President Akufo-Addo’s GH₵17 billion is a gap of GH₵5 billion which is unexplained.”

This, therefore, informed the Speaker’s decision to demand that the expenditure be investigated by the communities.

But commenting on the use of the funds, Dr Hassan Ayariga said that despite the blessing, “we couldn’t even save lives; people still died,” adding “we got so much money because of covid-19 but the corruption level consumed the money”.

He concluded that “sometimes certain things come as a blessing but because we mismanage them we think it is a deficiency”.