The Ministry of Finance has refuted the assertion that the Ministry could not account for GH¢403.7 million petroleum revenues of the ABFA funds.
This is in reference to a statement attributed to the Coordinator of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) as reported in sections of the media on Monday October 8, 2018.
The Annual Budget Funding Account (ABFA) is the account set up by government to receive allocations from oil and gas revenue in support of Government budgets.
A statement signed by the Chief Director of the Ministry, Patrick Nomo, which was copied to Goldstreet Business indicates that the ABFA received in 2017 was GH¢733.2 million. Of this amount, GH¢329.5 million was used for the payments for projects and an amount of GH¢403.7 million was transferred into the Treasury Main Account in 2017.
This transfer is in line with the provisions of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) in Section 46 of the Public Financial Management Act (PFMA), 2016, (Act 921), that requires that all government balances should be part of TSA.
He explained that the rationale is to avoid government cash balances sitting in various accounts whiles government borrows at expensive rates to finance important government expenditures.
The Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA), 2015, (Act 893), has clear provisions and arrangements for expending the ABFA, he noted.
The Chief Director assured that government is committed, in light of the PRMA, to apply these funds to expenditures permitted under the law and confirmed that ABFA funds has not been wrongly applied.
By Joshua W. Amlanu