Red Monday as citizens ask Auditor-General to disallow and surcharge audit infractions

• Posted on September 5, 2022September 5, 2022
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Members of the Coalition for Democratic Accountability and and Inclusive Governance are are asking the Auditor-General to disallow and surcharge audit infractions captured in the report.

The group is picketing the area outside the Office of the Auditor-General at Ministries Block O, Liberia Road, Accra today Monday September 5, to that effect.

A statement they wrote to the Police informing about the plan to picket said “This action is being organized in protest of the Auditor-General’s blatant refusal to perform his constitutionally mandated duty to disallow unlawful public expenditure and surcharge persons implicated in the 2019 and 2020 Auditor-General’s reports, in direct violation of article 187(7) of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana (‘the Constitution’) and the decision of the Supreme Court in Occupy Ghana v Attorney General [2017-2018] 2 SCLRG 527.”

It is recalled that a private legal practitioner Mr Gordon Edudzi Tameklo also said the failure of the Auditor General to do so is contempt of the apex court.

He stated the Supreme Court has earlier ruled that the Auditor-General should surcharge persons engaged in infractions as captured in the report but over the past two years, that has not been done.

“He has adopted the posture of Pontius Pilate and has washed his hands off the findings,” Mr Tameklo said on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday 3.

He added “His failure to disallow and surcharge is contemptuous of the Supreme Court and you know that if you violate the Supreme Court order you can be removed from office.”

Mr Tameklo who is a member of the NDC further asked President Akufo-Addo to prosecute his appointees who have been captured in the report for procurement breaches.

He intimated that some officials of the past National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration are being prosecuted by the current government for procurement breaches but the same action has not been taken against officials of the NPP government who have been captured as having violated the procurement laws.

He said “I am aware of officials of the NDC who are being prosecuted for procurement breaches. Now we have appointees of Akufo-Addo who have breached the PPA Act, no sanctions have been taken against them.

“The question boils down to leadership, either Akufo-Addo is not in charge of this country or he is an accomplice in this whole engagement.

“If every year the level of irregularities keep increasing under your watch and you are not taking any actions to deal with it then you are creating the image of being an accomplice.”

The report mentioned among other things that the Ministry of Finance failed to recover loans and advances of GH¢11,005,582.00 given to public sector workers within the stipulated period.

“We recommended that the Chief Director of the Ministry should liaise with the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department to have the outstanding amounts deducted from the salaries of the staff involved.

“Five accounts of the Ministry were garnished in 2021 as a result of cases brought against other government institutions. The garnishee order resulted in the accounts not being accessible to the Ministry.

“We recommended that the Chief Director should engage the Attorney General on how the accounts could be assessed and also ensure that the cause of the garnishee is investigated, and appropriate sanctions applied to anyone found culpable.”

By Laud Nartey