Cocoa roads audit was necessary – Fiifi Boafo

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story wrongfully stated that Mr. Fiifi Boafo defended the alleged $10 million cocoa roads audit as claimed by the Minority. Mr. Boafo in the interview only indicated the relevance of the audit. 

—-

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has defended the government’s audit of the cocoa roads project.

The Communications Manager at COCOBOD, Fiifi Boafo told Citi News that the audit was necessary.

“Management was of the view that certain things were not clear and there was the need for us to have a better understanding of what we are committing state funds to…. For instance if a road that was supposed to cost 17 million balloon to 100 million and you take over as management and you want to go ahead and do it without asking questions or getting experts to advice you, and you go ahead, we do not think that is a better way of doing things,” he said in an interview on Eyewitness News.

Fiifi Boafo’s comment was in response to claims made by the Minority in Parliament at a press conference held on Thursday.

The Minority in Parliament made the statement following Government’s announcement of the re-commencement of some cocoa road projects with an allocation of GH¢3 billion, more than two years after the project was suspended for auditing.

Eric Opoku, Ranking Member on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs and member of the Minority who addressed the press on Thursday said;

“…What the Akufo-Addo government has succeeded in doing is to waste millions of the tax payer’s money on illegally procured audits not sanctioned by the Auditor General. We are aware that $10 million has been paid to one of such illegally procured private audit firms owned by a member of Akufo-Addo’s Council of State and at the right time, we shall make the chilling details available to the Ghanaian people,” he said.

He also questioned why “after almost three years in government, not a single official of the erstwhile Mahama administration or a single contractor has been indicted for any inflated, fraudulent or ghost cocoa road project,” since the audit was expected to uncover fraud.