NAB blows GH¢727k on allowances – AG report

• Posted on August 21, 2017August 21, 2017
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Auditor General has discovered the National Accreditation Board (NAB) for the period of January 1 to December 31, 2014 failed to obtain Ministerial approval for Board and Committee allowances to the tune of GHS726,886.52.

This was in contravention of section 7 of the NAB’s Act 2007 (Act 744) which requires the board members and members of a committee of the board to be paid allowances approved by the Minister of Education in consultation with the Minister responsible for finance.

The anomaly/failure, according to the 2015 Auditor General’s report, occurred due to “failure of the Minister [then] to respond to the request of the board and management’s failure to follow up for a ministerial approval for the payment of the board and committee allowances.”

Also, the report said the NAB failed to submit Internally Generated Fund (IGF) expenditure returns to the Ministry of Finance to the tune of GHS4, 604,469.50.

According to the Retention of Funds Act 2007, Act 735, section (5a) on utilization of IGFs, “Ministries, Departments and Agencies which have approval to retain and utilize IGFs can only incur expenditure funded by the IGFs for a particular month if the records of collection for the previous month, bank lodgments, expenditure returns for the previous month have been submitted to the ministry of Finance.”

But the Auditor General’s review of the Board’s collection and utilization of its IGFs amounting to over GHS4million for the period 2014 revealed that “management has not submitted its records of collection, bank lodgments and expenditure returns to the Ministry of Finance.”

“Management [of the Board] failed to adhere to the dictates of Act 735 section (5a). Failure to adhere to the dictates of the act could lead to unapproved expenditure,” added the report being scrutinized by the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (PAC).

-Starrfmonline