The Ministry of Finance has described as inaccurate and unfounded a report by some media outlets suggesting that the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, took GH¢77 million from the Contingency Vault for football, and spent GH¢27.9 million on the Black Stars.

In statement, the Ministry said the story attributed to the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa sought to create the impression that the Minister for Finance created an illegal Contingency Vault in 2023 and took money from it without Parliamentary approval.

“We wish to state categorically that these allegations are inaccurate and unfounded. It is incorrect to state that the Contingency Vault was illegally created by Ken Ofori-Atta in 2023. The Contingency Vault (vote) is always part of the Appropriation Bill which Parliament passes annually to support execution of national Budgets and therefore does not require the Ministry to go back for approval from Parliament to access it”, the statement said.

It explained that the Vote enables government to meet critical expenditure challenges, which arise during budget implementation but are not covered by the approved and appropriated budget of Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

“However, there is also a Contingency Fund which is the creation of Article 177 of the 1992 Constitution and reiterated by Section 36 of the PFM Act (2016) Act 921”, the statement clarified.

It pointed out that the Contingency Fund is set up with the approval of Parliament to enable the State cover urgent and unforeseen expenditure for which no allocation exists in the Annual Appropriation.

“A recent occasion during which this legislative provision was utilised was the Covid-19 Pandemic. Hence, there is a clear distinction between the Contingency Vote and the Contingency Fund”.

“For the avoidance of doubt and the education of the public, the Contingency Vote, unlike the Contingency Fund, does not require going back to Parliament for approval whenever there is need to access it. We hope that this also clarifies the fact that our public Finance architecture does not have any such nomenclature as Contingency Vault", it pointed out.