The late Kingsley Ahunu-Armah died in March 2015 whiles in office after months of battle with serious stroke.
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He was buried later in the year, with the Gomoa East Assembly organizing a befitting funeral in his honour.
However, the 2015 Auditor General's report indicted the assembly over its expenditure on the late DCE’s funeral.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has subsequently been interrogating the matter to find out the culprits in the massive spending at the Assembly.
Appearing before the Committee, accountant for the Assembly, Ebenezer Mensah, said the initial budget for the funeral was pegged at GHc9,000, however, the amount bloated due to certain factors.
He explained that the presence of some very important dignitaries saw the initial GHS9000 budget for the funeral balloon to GHS81,259.
“Looking at the category of people who attended the funeral from the presidency and all the other MPs and Ministers that came to the funeral, even though the money may be on the high side, if given a second opportunity, something could be done about it but at the time that is what we spent,” he stated.
He further revealed that the decision was proposed by the Executive Committee of the assembly and approved by the General Assembly.
Responding to the shocking expenditure by the Assembly, Ranking Member of the PAC, Kofi Okyere-Agyekum, said it was “outrageous” to spend such huge sums on a funeral.
Speaking in an interview with Accra-based Class FM, the Fanteakwa MP said “we don’t set up district assemblies to use the funds of the assembly to conduct funerals.”
He added: “If a member of staff dies, they may have a welfare system or members of the assembly or staff may make contributions to help the family to conduct the funeral but to spend GHS81,000 of the assembly’s money to conduct funeral for a dead staff sounds outrageous to me. You know what GHS81,000 can do?”
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