Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has expressed concern over financial irregularities totalling GH¢5.2 billion captured in the 2025 audit report, including GH¢4.8 billion in tax-related infractions.
Chairperson of the Committee, Abena Osei-Asare, said the scale of the tax infractions required closer scrutiny to determine whether the relevant tax authorities had taken steps to address the issues identified.
Speaking at the Committee’s sitting on October 6, she said the PAC would demand explanations on the action taken to recover or remedy the identified irregularities.
“We see a reported financial irregularity of five point two billion. But the most alarming thing is the tax infraction of four point eight billion,” she said.
According to Ms Osei-Asare, the Committee would engage the relevant tax authorities to establish how they had responded to the audit findings and what measures had been implemented to prevent further losses.
“And so we will seek to find answers and see how best our tax authorities have been able to remedy this situation,” she added.
Beyond the figures contained in the latest report, the Committee also expressed concern about the recurrence of similar audit findings involving public institutions.
Ms Osei-Asare said repeated infractions by the same institutions raised questions about whether recommendations from previous audits were being implemented effectively.
“A legitimate concern of the Ghanaian public is that many audit findings appear year after year,” she said.
She noted that when an institution continues to be cited for the same weaknesses in its financial controls, the problem goes beyond the initial audit observation.
“If the same institution is cited repeatedly for the same control failure, then we are no longer dealing with just audit findings, we are dealing with a failure to learn,” she stressed.
The PAC Chairperson said persistent infractions suggested that some ministries, departments and agencies were not doing enough to correct weaknesses identified in previous audits.
“If it happens repeatedly, then we are no longer dealing with audit findings, but the ministries, departments or agencies’ failure to learn,” she added.
She said the Committee would therefore adopt a more results-oriented approach in its engagements with institutions cited in audit reports.
Ms Osei-Asare explained that institutions appearing before the PAC would be expected to demonstrate the specific changes they had made in response to previous audit findings.
“So that is what auditees should be telling us. What changed or what has changed as a result of the audit?” she said.
READ ALSO:
GNFS to integrate fire safety education into basic school curriculum
AMA pays GH¢38,656 surgery bill for injured sanitation worker
