Minority Wants Special Initiative Ministry Scrapped

The Minority in Parliament is demanding a collapse of the Ministry of Special Development Initiative.

Leader of the group, Haruna Iddrisu who is also the Member of Parliament for Tamale South told the House the Special Development ministry is redundant and must be done away with.

He made the comment, Thursday, to round up debate on the 2019 budget which was read on the floor last two weeks.
 
The Ministry was set up by the president Akufo-Addo led administration to oversee the implementation of special initiatives promised during the 2016 electioneering campaign.

However the Hawa Koomson led Ministry made the headlines for all the wrong reasons last year when it was cited in a budget inflation controversy.

The budget which was widely criticized by MPs on both sides of the aisle comprises a GHȻ800,000 website development component and a further GHȻ10 million on 20 four-wheel drives for the minister and other officials.

The Ministry has also budgeted to build a six-unit classroom block at the cost of GHȻ770,000 each, while it looks to controversially spend GHȻ6.5 million on furniture and GHȻ15 million on renting an office space in 2018 alone.

The Ministry later clarified some of the figures were typographical mistakes.
 
In the 2019 budget, however, the ministry was allocated ¢1.5 billion to undertake various project. But even before the amount would be allocated the Minority insists the Ministry must be scrapped.

Haruna Iddrisu said the ministry is working in conflict with the development authorities established by the president.

“This budget is laid on behalf of the president. May I use this opportunity to call on the president that his ministry, the ministry of Special Initiative, I am serving a strong notice that we on this side will not support any budgetary allocation or appropriation to that ministry,” he said.

He does not understand why a whopping ¢1.5 billion will be allocated to that Ministry at the expense of the Development authorities.
 
But the sector Minister Hawa Koomson has debunked the claims.

“We are not duplicating,” she said, adding her ministry is complimenting the work of the Assemblies.