The Minority in Parliament has rescheduled the public hearing on the audit of the government’s COVID-19 expenditure for February 15, 2023.

The group had previously announced that the Finance and Health committees of Parliament would meet on February 7, 2023.

This follows the 2020 Auditor General’s report on the government’s COVID-19 expenses, which revealed that only 25% of the US$ 2.5 billion mobilised was used for to fight the pandemic with the remainder spent on government programmes such as Free SHS and LEAP, among others.

According to Minority Leader Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, the committees will begin their work next Wednesday.

“We have had series of meetings and agreed that the public hearings were supposed to start on February 7. However, leadership of the committee met and agreed that we will begin on February 15. So hopefully next week Wednesday, we will start that hearing, and you will hear more from us.”

 Government is under pressure to account for the COVID-19 expenditure following the release of the Auditor General report.

The Minority has thus warned that it will be taking bold steps in the third session of the 8th Parliament in order for the government to come clean on the misappropriated funds.

In addition, some of the funds were spent on unapproved expenditures or purchases that are yet to be delivered.

The report by the Auditor General thus recommended that such amounts are recovered to the state.

The caucus is therefore going to engage both the finance and health committees on the public hearing to explain the implications of the COVID-19 expenditure.