It has emerged that a Planning Officer at the Aowin District Assembly used monies meant for projects to pay his school fees.
Mr Emil Atsu pursued a Master’s programme in Development Finance at the University of Ghana between 2011 and 2014, while serving as a Planning Officer at the Aowin Assembly.
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However, when he was transferred to the Suaman District Assembly as the Coordinating Officer, he gave approval and caused the Finance Officer to reimburse him with GH¢10,957.00 in September 2017.
This was contained in the Auditor-General’s report on the accounts
of assemblies for the financial year ending December 31, 2017.
According to the report, the bill submitted by Mr Atsu was not budgeted for by the Suaman District Assembly since he was not a staff of the Assembly.
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Also, the Auditor-General noted that, the bill submitted for payment was not disclosed as a liability in the accounts of Suaman Assembly to warrant a refund to Mr Atsu.
Since the payment was wrong, the Auditor-General has requested Mr Atsu to refund the GH₵10,957.00 paid to him.
Unsubstantiated
payments
The Auditor-General’s report noted that, the management of 13 Assemblies in the Western region made 256 payments totaling GH¢655,880.85 in respect of goods and services without supporting the payment vouchers with the relevant official receipts, invoices, waybills and other expenditure documents contrary to Section 7 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921).
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The report attributed the unsubstantiated payments to weak controls and poor monitoring covering financial accountability resulting in the anomaly which could lead to loss of funds.
“in the view of the Finance Officer’s failure to support the vouchers with the relevant documents to authenticate the transactions, we requested the respective Finance Officers to refund the total amount of GH¢655,880.85,” the report said.
“Failure to support the vouchers with the relevant documents to authenticate the transactions, we requested the respective Finance Officers to refund the total amount of GH₵655,880.85,” the report said.
Abandoned
projects
The report revealed that, four Assemblies made total payments of GH₵1,142,543.79
towards the construction of 14 projects. At different levels of completion, the
projects came to a standstill due to funding challenges.
To ensure early completion of the projects, the Auditor-General
recommended that management should seek for funding and prioritise the projects
to make them beneficial to the communities.
Completed
projects not in sue
About three Assemblies in the Western region spent a total of GH₵1,551,910.07 to complete four projects. However, the projects were not being utilised by the beneficiary communities due to lack of facilities like water, electricity, access roads, furnishing and strategic partner to operate the facilities.
The report recommended that, management of the Assemblies should provide the necessary facilities to make the projects operational.
Ghana|Adomonline.com|Adwoa Gyasiwaa Agyeman
