'PROVIDE AUDIT SERVICE ADEQUATE FUNDING'

Story: Kofi Yeboah & Lucy Adoma Yeboah

THE Auditor-General, Mr Edward Dua Agyeman, has thrown a challenge to the government to provide adequate funding for the Audit Service and reap 15-fold in respect of saving state funds that would have gone down the drain.
He said for every GH¢1 that the government would give to the Audit Service, the service would be able to save GH¢15 for the nation.
Mr Agyeman told the Daily Graphic yesterday that the revelations at the just-ended Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sittings on the Auditor-General’s Report for 2004 and 2005, even in the face of financial and human resource constraints, were ample evidence of the greater job the service could do if it were given the needed resources.
“For the first time let’s give the Audit Service the budget it requires and see what the PAC will bring out next year,” he challenged the government.
According to Mr Agyeman, the result of the poor resourcing of the Audit Service was the huge depletion of the national kitty, as detected in the Auditor-General’s Reports.
The Audit Service has been working under extreme difficulties over the years, with very weak financial, logistic and staff strength.
Currently, the service has offices in only 65 out of the 138 districts, and with the recent creation of 25 new districts, the representation of the service in the districts will worsen.
With respect to logistics, most offices of the service in the north, for instance, have been damaged by the recent floods, while many roads leading to the offices have also become impassable.
In view of the service’s inadequate human resource, it relies heavily on personnel from the National Service Scheme (NSS) and the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) to discharge its mandate.
The Auditor-General strongly believes that all these challenges can be effectively addressed if the service is given adequate budget. But that has not been the case over the years.
Between 1995 and 2004, for instance, budget requests made by the Audit Service were slashed, sometimes by 40 per cent, and in some cases the actual amount disbursed fell far short of the allocated budget.
The Audit Service is requesting for GH¢27,406,121.02 (¢274.06 billion) for its operations next year, covering personnel emoluments, administration, services and investments.
Making a strong case for an increased budget, the Auditor-General promised that “if they give us more money, we can save large sums of money for the nation”.
He said in view of the scarce resources given to the service, the government tended to overlook the huge amount of money that went down the drain.
Mr Agyeman said the service was unable to audit the accounts of all the district assemblies and the country’s foreign missions every year as a result of inadequate funds and that made the nation lose huge amounts of money.
He suggested that a percentage from the HIPC Fund, the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), the Road Fund and other public funds whose accounts were audited by the service for free could be set aside to address its financial difficulties.
He said there were plans to open 25 district offices at the beginning of next year “and so the government should really consider our budget because we cannot do it without the money”.
In another development, the Auditor-General has stated that individuals cited for wrongdoing during the public hearing of the PAC should be held directly responsible and not ministers and heads of departments.
“I would like to emphasise here that the proceedings were not an indictment on the ministers of the various ministries for any criminal doings. It is a wake up call for the ministers,” he stressed.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic after the opening of a one-day validation workshop on guidelines on the roles and responsibilities of audit report implementation committees (ARICs) in Accra yesterday, Mr Agyeman said since the report was specific on who did what, it would be wrong for the sector ministers to be held directly accountable for the misdeeds.
The workshop was to discuss the revised terms of reference of the ARICs so that participants’ views, comments and suggestions could be factored into them to enhance the quality of the document for implementation.
The ARICs are established to ensure that internal audit units in MDAs function effectively and that recommendations made in audit reports are appropriately implemented to ensure the efficient and effective utilisation of public funds.
He explained that the day-to-day mechanism of disbursement was the responsibility of the chief directors of the MDAs and their desk officers, adding, “They should be mindful of their duties as the operating officers of public funds and they should be accountable for any of their misdeeds”.
He commended members of the PAC for a good work done.
On the ARICs, Mr Agyeman said there had been an amendment to remove the representative of the Auditor-General from serving on the ARICs in order to avoid a conflict of interest.
The Chairman of the PAC, Mr Samuel Sallas-Mensah, expressed regret that almost seven years after the passage of the Audit Service Act, some public institutions had not established ARICs, while those which had been established were not functioning.
He said Parliament, represented by the PAC, relied greatly on audit reports, especially the Auditor-General’s report, in forming opinion and also assuring itself of whether approved funds had been used for the intended purposes, public assets had been safeguarded or value had been received for funds expended.
He called on the Chief Justice to “empanel the members of the Financial Administration Tribunal as required by Section 66 of the Financial Administration Act (Act 654) of 2003 to complete the accountability cycle of the public financial management of our dear country”.
The Advisor, Public Expenditure Management of the Governance and Institutional Development Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat, Mr Kaifala Marah, commended Ghana for putting in place measures to ensure effective auditing.
The Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), Mr Patrick Nomo, said the workshop was important to solicit views, comments and suggestions to enhance the final document.
He described the amendment in the current guidelines on the ARICs to ensure the deletion of the representative of the Auditor-General as very appropriate because “one cannot be a prosecutor and judge on the same case”.