I had a scathing piece planned the moment I saw this piece of information but I had to relax and let myself simmer a little before I put myself in ‘contempt’ of the Presidency.

There is an alarming lack of circumspection on the part of government when it comes to financial prudence that really should put the fear of God into each and every one of us as Ghanaians.

Aside the skyrocketed public debt portfolio (with no visible results), judgement debt issues, scandals such as GYEEDA and SADA which sucked sums of money that I sometimes feel we don’t really appreciate the magnitude of; it turns out the office of the President itself has no interest in financial prudence despite the myriad of issues plaguing government and Ghanaians.

With the hardships Ghanaians have to endure, you would think those in the big office at the very least would ensure no waste of public resources occur there, at least until there are results to justify that kind of expenditure.

But no, the latest expenditure report presented to Parliament shows a massive overspending on the presidential budget of over 130% of the figure allocated for the calendar year 2014. And this occurred just between January and September this year. Which means since then they’ve had ample opportunity to add just a little more to the total figure.

The office was allocated Ghc 30,929,343, yet documents presented to Parliament show an expenditure of Ghc 75,917, 714.

And to be honest this is what made its ways into the books, I shudder to think of what might have happened off-book.

This might seem like chicken change in the grand scheme of things but in the conditions we live in there should at the very least be an effort for prudence, from the presidency no less! You couple this with the guaranteed excesses from all other government agencies and departments and we might finally have a figure to rival our national debt.

It shows a shocking lack of discretion on the part of those who should be intimately familiar with the situation on the ground, and also shows that ‘to whom much is given, very little is gotten in return’

I don’t know how much clearer Ghanaians can make their predicament to the government heard, but here’s just another confirmation it all falls on deaf ears. ‘We can’t hear you, we’ll do what we like’ seems to be the refrain of this government; ‘yentie obiaa’.

It does not only take scandals to run down the public purse; its being done in broad daylight and without any redress by all government agencies and departments, and the Presidency.

And there’s nothing you can do about it; the legislators supposed to check these things are all in cahoots with the government- but sit back and wait for conditions in the country to get better.

It’s going to be a long wait.