The Auditor-General has been auditing and producing several reports, but the Attorney General Godfred Dame has never raised concerns about those reports, with the exception of the one on Covid expenditure, according to the Chairman of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Mr James Klutse Avedzi.
Mr Avedzi inquired as to what was unique about the Covid spending report that prompted Mr Dame to write the letter.
He disagreed with Mr. Dame that the release of the audit report on Covid spending was unconstitutional.
According to him, the laws that established the Auditor General’s office require the officer to audit and publish reports.
“I disagree completely with the Attorney General. The question I ask is, why is this Covid 19 report for which he is asking the Auditor General to unpublish it? Why didn’t he do same to the previous reports, the normal MDA reports, the assemblies report, all those things as soon as the Auditor General submits to Parliament he publishes them so why is he saying this one they should unpublish?
“The Constitution was very clear in Article 187, it established the Auditor General and office of the Auditor General. Article 187(2) says that the Auditor General shall audit the public accounts of Ghana and these public accounts of Ghana cover all departments, agencies, ministries, public boards, corporations, courts, universities, district assemblies, all of them. So so this Clause 2 of 187 mandates AG to audit all these accounts,” he told TV3’s Komla Klutse in an interview on Thursday Febraury 9.
Mr Dame has written against the decision by the Auditor-General to publish the report on Covid expenditure.
Per Article 187(5) of the Constitution, Mr Dame explained, the Auditor-General is mandated to submit his report to Parliament to draw attention to any irregularities in the accounts audited?
The Auditor-General report stated that “During our review, we noted that senior management staff and other supporting staff of the Ministry of Information paid themselves a total amount of GH¢151,500.00 as COVID-19 risk allowance for coming to work during the lockdown.”
It further indicated that the Ministry of Health (MoH) entered a contract signed on 15 December 2021 for the supply of 26 Toyota Hiace Deluxe Ambulances valued at US$4,049,460.12 out of which US$607,419.02 was paid to vide PV No. IPF 22-007 of 2 September 2022 is to be delivered by 15 January 2022.
However, the report said, the ambulances remained undelivered as of 28 November 2022.
But the Attorney General in his letter said ” “I observe that the report of the special audit on the Government’s COVID-19 transactions has been published on the website of the Audit Service. In light of the constitutional provisions pertaining to the duty of the Auditor-General after the preparation of audit reports, I consider a publication of the COVID-19 audit report or indeed any audit report particularly when the same has not been either considered by Parliament or referred to a committee of Parliament, premature.”
