The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, Mr Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, yesterday cut short proceedings of the committee to enable a representative of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to go back and prepare adequately before reappearing before the committee.
That was after the Head of Treasury of the BoG, Mr Yao Abalo, had failed to satisfactorily answer questions posed by members of the committee.
Mr Abalo had appeared before the committee to answer questions in respect of its consideration of the report of the Auditor-General on the statement of foreign exchange receipts and payments of the bank for the half-year which ended on December 2012.
The report had indicated a sharp decline in the foreign reserves of the bank in the period between December 2011 and June 2012, a situation that necessitated the chairman of the committee to enquire why the situation had been so.
Unsatisfactory answers
But Mr Abalo failed to answer the question to the satisfaction of the committee, even when the question was re-framed many times by different members of the committee.
Also, the committee observed that payments were made to some companies in foreign currency, contrary to the government’s directive that all transactions in the country must be carried out in the local currency.
Some members of the committee wondered whether that did not amount to preferential treatment of some companies, but Mr Abalo said payments were governed by contracts that had been signed already and that the BoG only adhered to the tenets of the signed contracts.
Double standards
When members of the committee attempted follow-up questions on why these should be double standards in the payment in foreign currency to some entities and cedis to others, the chairman stepped in, saying that was a matter that must be tackled in the report of the committee and raised on the floor of Parliament.
He, therefore, asked for questions along that line to be shelved. Other answers provided by Mr Abalo seemed to contradict the report before the committee, a situation which led to the chairman bringing proceedings to a halt.
He asked Mr Abalo to go back and prepare well before appearing before the committee today.
