Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has told the ad hoc committee that is investigating the allegations against him made by the Minority that the performance of the local currency, the Cedi, is not not necessarily due to fiscal factors.
He stated that a lot of factors including speculation and economic uncertainties affect the strength of the Cedi.
Responding to allegation of recklessness made against him by the Minority when he appeared before the committee on Friday November 18, he said “The cedi performed well up to March 2022. The major factors affecting the Cedi are not necessary fiscal factors [but] extraordinary global factors, speculations due to economic uncertainties also affect the Cedi.”
Regarding allegation that he took money from the Contingency Fund for the National Cathedral, he denied doing that.
He told the proponents of the motion of censure for his removal that they should not confuse Contingency Vault with Contingency Fund with respect to funding for the National Cathedral project.
Mr Ofori-Atta explained that funds were taken from the Contingency Vault for the cathedral and not from the Contingency Fund as is being alleged by the Minority.
The Contingency Fund and the Contingency Vault, he said, are two different things altogether which should not be confused.
“I did not withdraw funds from the Contingency Fund for National Cathedral,” he told the committee on Friday November 18.
He added “The withdrawals were lawfully done from the Contingency Vault and not from the Contingency Fund as alleged by the proponents.”
The committee dropped two out of the seven charges against him.
This was after the Ghana National Petroleum Commission (GNPC) which was called upon by the committee to testify on Thursday did not say that the Finance Minister authroiused payment of oil revenues into offshore accounts.
During proceedings on Friday November 18, Co-chair of the committee Dr Dominic Ayine said “…They also did not say anything to the effect that you gave the instructions with respect to that payment. On account of the evidence adduced which kind of contradicted the evidence that was led by the proponent of the motion, the committee has taken the view that you will not be called to deal with this matter.”
He added “…So in essence, there are now five grounds that you will have to deal with. Those are grounds 2, that is the unconstitutional withdrawals in relation to the national for national cathedral, then we have ground 5, 6 and 7 to deal with.”
Mr Ofori-Atta appeared before the committee on Friday November 18 to answer the charges against him.
In his initial submission, he told the committee that “I am certain Ghanaians will have amore balance view of what has led us here.”