The Parliamentary Committee on Local Government and Rural Development has suspended its sitting involving the Tolon District Assembly in the Northern Region after discovering inconsistencies in the documents presented for the consideration of the Annual Audit Statements of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs).
The delegation from the Tolon District, led by the District Chief Executive (DCE), Seidu Brimah, appeared before the committee on Thursday, October 9, but was unable to respond to key questions concerning ongoing development projects in the district.
The confusion arose when the committee observed that the documents presented by the assembly differed significantly from those in the possession of the DCE.
While examining project records, members of the committee noted that several projects listed as completed in the assembly’s report were either uncompleted or partially executed in the document before the committee.
“If you have different report show me unless you are saying that I am lying from the report i have here. For instance, just come page 47 of 62, (project) not implemented. These are your remarks, on the same page, your best there is partially implemented,” one of the committee members argued.
“How is it that mine is not implemented and yours is implemented? so it means that we are dealing with two different documents, this is page 47 here, not implemented, the best is partially implemented and you have implemented so why are we dealing with two different documents?,” he added.
The discrepancy brought proceedings to a temporary halt, as the DCE and his team struggled to reconcile the conflicting information.
Watch what transpired here
After several minutes of attempts to clarify the situation, it became evident that two separate sets of documents had been submitted, one presented to the committee, which painted a positive picture of the assembly’s performance, and another held by the DCE, which contained conflicting details.
The Tolon District Assembly was directed to return and prepare accurate documentation before reappearing for the continuation of the audit review.
“You might have to go and rectify it and present it (later),” the chairman of the committee told the DCE and his team.
Source: Albert Kuzor
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