The Minority in Parliament has called for the immediate dismissal of Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Dominic Ayine, over what it describes as his role in the alleged unlawful disbursement of GH¢350 million approved for flood relief.
Addressing a press conference in Parliament, Deputy Minority Leader Patricia Appiagyei argued that the release of the funds may have violated both the Constitution and the Public Financial Management Act.
According to the Minority, Parliament had approved the withdrawal of GH¢350 million from the Contingency Fund to support victims of recent flooding. However, the caucus contends that the fund was under a garnishee order at the time, making any withdrawal from it unlawful.
Ms. Appiagyei questioned how the funds were released if the Contingency Fund remained under court attachment.
“The unavoidable question, therefore, is how did the money move?” she asked.
She argued that if the Contingency Fund could not legally be accessed, then the money must have been withdrawn from another public account without parliamentary approval.
“One conclusion is difficult to escape. If the Contingency Fund remained under attachment and could not lawfully be accessed, then the emergency disbursement could only have proceeded through another public account,” she said.
The Minority further alleged that the Ministry of Finance’s announcement that the GH¢350 million had been released from the Contingency Fund raises serious concerns if the money was ultimately sourced from a different account.
According to the caucus, any alternative funding source should have been submitted to Parliament for approval before the money was disbursed.
“In other words, when the approved source became unavailable, an alternative source appears to have been used,” Ms. Appiagyei stated.
“If that is what happened, then Parliament was never asked to approve the alternative source and the constitutional requirements governing withdrawals from public funds were bypassed.”
The Minority maintained that if the funds were drawn from an account other than the Contingency Fund, Parliament’s approval was effectively disregarded.
“If the GH¢350 million was drawn from any account other than the Contingency Fund, then the approval Parliament granted was never executed. The withdrawal that was executed was never approved,” she said.
The caucus believes such actions would constitute a breach of the Constitution and the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921), which criminalises unauthorised withdrawals of public funds.
The Minority also blamed Dr. Ayine, arguing that he failed in his constitutional responsibility as the government’s principal legal adviser.
Referring to Article 88 of the Constitution, Ms. Appiagyei said the Attorney General should have acted to protect the state’s legal position once the Contingency Fund became the subject of court proceedings.
She claimed there was no indication that any effort had been made to challenge or discharge the attachment on the fund and accused the Attorney General of failing to provide lawful advice when it mattered most.
The Minority is therefore demanding Dr. Ayine’s immediate resignation. It further called on President John Dramani Mahama to dismiss him if he refuses to step down.
“Should he fail to do the honourable thing, we call on the President, who swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend this Constitution, to relieve him of office without delay,” Ms. Appiagyei said.
Beyond the call for his removal, the Minority is demanding that the Attorney General and the Minister for Finance appear before Parliament to provide all documents relating to the transaction, including the garnishee order, court records, official correspondence and directives involving the Ministry of Finance, the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department and the Bank of Ghana.
The caucus is also calling on the Governor of the Bank of Ghana to publicly disclose whether the central bank complied with the Attorney General’s directive, identify the account from which the GH¢350 million was released and state who authorised the transaction.
Additionally, the Minority has requested the Auditor-General to conduct a special audit into the flood relief disbursement, tracing the movement of the funds from source to destination and reporting the findings to Parliament.
The Minority warned that it would pursue all available parliamentary and legal avenues should government officials fail to provide what it described as full and transparent explanations regarding the transaction.
