We need a comprehensive forensic audit now – Ablakwa reveals more rot

“It has emerged in Parliament following the Foreign Minister’s response to my question on cost of evacuations that KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Middle East Airlines and Emirates Airlines evacuated Ghanaians from the UAE and China for $396 per passenger and also airlifted our compatriots in Lebanon at $269 per person.

However, our own Casa aircraft operated by the Ghana Air Force somehow managed to evacuate Ghanaians from neighboring West and Central Africa at a staggering cost to the taxpayer of $940 per passenger.

It seems to me that foreign airlines were more empathetic to the plight of stranded Ghanaians than the aircraft managed by our own government.

Strangely, whereas government says it spent GHS46,398,452 on Ghanaians from Lebanon at page 273 of the 2021 Budget, the Foreign Minister accounted for less than GHS25million of that amount in Parliament on Thursday. No one knows what happened to the over GHS21million missing as she couldn’t provide satisfactory answers to my supplementary questions despite her best efforts.

When you also consider that government claims to have spent a colossal GHS44,460,530 which in some cases translates to as much as GHS9,139 on the cost of quarantine for an individual, it becomes ever more imperative that a special forensic audit is commissioned on all COVID-19 related expenditure.

Obviously, the Sputnik-V scandal, the Frontiers heist; the shocking GHS54.3million for cooked food during the lockdown are not isolated cases. We need a comprehensive forensic audit NOW!”