The Editor of the New Crusading Guide is rallying support for the new Auditor General, Daniel Domelevo whose public spiritedness he believes would end the systemic problem of financial impropriety at the ministries, departments, and agencies.
Malik Kweku Baako Jnr touted the credentials of the new Auditor General describing him as “serious and uncompromising,” adding the regime of disallowance and surcharging, introduced by Domelevo could potentially end the nagging problem of misappropriations in the public and civil service.
Speaking on Joy FM’s news analysis programme Newsfile, Saturday, the ace journalist said the new discovery of ¢5.4 billion disallowed by the Auditor General is “mind-boggling.”
Background
The Auditor General uncovered a startling ¢5.4 billion said to be debts which government has to pay but which have no basis at all or have been paid already.
The debts owed to contractors and other service providers by officials at the various ministries were said to have been incurred between 2014-2017.
Daniel Dormelevo has since disallowed such payment and has recommended prosecutions of the officials who presided over such payments.
The discovery and recommendations follow a 2016 audit of the finances of the various ministries, departments and agencies.
Section 16 of the Audit Service Act gives power to the Auditor General to conduct special audit of the ministries and submit a report to Parliament.
Daniel Domelevo
The Auditor General said he was intrigued by the liabilities mentioned last year in respect of indebtedness of the ministries and decided to activate Section 16 of Act by conducting an audit.
The findings from the interim audit report issued last year are jaw breaking.
According to the Auditor General the initial amount disallowed after the interim audit was a whopping ¢5.7 billion.
“By disallowing it means when we interrogated the liabilities we did not get any supporting document to justify it. The ministry could not provide the document or in most of the cases the documents are there but we realized the monies have been paid so it is no more a liability or the amount which has been stated by the ministry we could not verify all..” he said.
According to Domelevo, some of the persons against whom the adverse findings were made responded to the query as a result of which the sum disallowed reduced from ¢5.7 billion to ¢5.4 billion.
Contributing to the discussion on Newsfile Kweku Baako Jnr said this systemic canker must stop and the Auditor General must be supported to nip the canker in the bud.
He chronicled a tall list of financial impropriety from 1965 till now contained in audit reports.
Except for the quantum of the amount stolen or misappropriated which changes, Malik Baako said the reports are almost repeated word for word every year.
“That is why we need to support the AG and the new wave of disallowance and surcharging,” he stated.
Other panelists on the show supported the actions taken by the Auditor General. Rockson Dafeamekpor said he is “happy with the speed with which Domelevo is working.”
Unless it is willful conduct, the NDC Member of Parliament found it difficult to understand how double payment should happen for the same service rendered.
A deputy Attorney General Joseph Dinkiok Kpemka assured the government is investigating the misappropriation and would prosecute persons found to be guilty.
He hoped government will not be accused of political witch-hunting.
A good and laudable work done. Should this continue for ten years, Ghana will be a developed nation because the evils and canker of corruption will be a thing of the past. We thank God for all these hard-working genius in government! Fault-finders, away from the performing patriots.