Government begins value for money audit on $450m Cocoa Road Projects

The government of Ghana has begun investigations into how $450 million earmarked for the Cocoa Roads Projects under the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government was diverted.

Ghana’s Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr Afriyie Akoto said in an interview that a value for money audit has begun on all cocoa road projects undertaken by the NDC government.

“We are investigating the issue. We have sent engineers to the field and they are doing assessment. When they are done we will compare their findings to the invoices presented to us and the quality of the roads. We will test the thickness, the state of all the roads they claim to have constructed and see if this amount of money was really spent on the roads.

Currently, some people are being questioned and they would be made to answer for the projects” he stated.

It will be recalled that the Cocobod suspended the much criticized construction of cocoa roads after an interim audit revealed a lot of discrepancies in the projects.

The Chief Executive Officer, Isaac Boahene Aidoo said over 230 different road contracts were awarded under the previous government to the tune of over GH¢3.5 billion way above the financial muscles of Cocobod. He noted that the preliminary audit revealed outrageous cost components of most of the contracts.

“We are just suspending the project to make way for a comprehensive audit to give a clearer picture because we need to protect the public purse especially money coming from the sweat of modest cocoa farmers,“ he said.

By Adu Koranteng

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