By Christopher Arko, GNA
Accra, Jan. 20 GNA – The Public Accounts
Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Monday ordered the arrest of two officers of
the Sefwi Akontombra District Assembly for not being forthright on the absence
of 62 payment vouchers totaling GHC126, 000.
PAC Chairman James Klutse Avedzi directed
the Police to arrest Isaac Akowuah, a former District Finance Officer of the
Assembly; and James Esilfie, the current District Finance Officer, as he was
implicated for conniving to lie to the committee over irregularities cited in
the report when they appeared before the committee on Monday.
The PAC at an earlier meeting with officials
from the assembly last week, raised questions on some 62 payment vouchers that
could not be accounted for.
After further enquiries, PAC could only
trace nine of the payment vouchers.
The PAC Chairman noted that most of the
payment vouchers that were submitted to the Committee did not match with the
current receipts and had different reasons stated for spending, following a
check.
Mr Akowuah and Mr Essilfie made fruitless
efforts to explain the non-submission of the payment vouchers to the district
auditors for scrutiny. However, the Committee refused to accept their
explanation, saying it was not convincing
Unimpressed with their responses, Dr Avedzi
said the behaviour of the two was a careful attempt to keep some payment
vouchers from the Committee, and that, he said, was in contempt of the
Committee.
He accused the two officers of conniving to
deceive the Committee hold it into ransom.
“So the two of you will want to hold this
Committee to ransom by coming to deceive us to take anything and get away with
it?”
He therefore ordered the Police officers who
were present at the hearing to lockup the two officers at the Parliament Police
Station, and take their statements to help with prosecution.
The two finance officers were eventually
whisked away by the Parliament Police for interrogation.
The Public Accounts Committee on January 13,
2020 began working on the Auditor-General’s 2016 report with some
representatives from Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in
Greater Accra, Western and Volta Regions already appearing to defend their
spending.
Dr Avedzi warned at earlier sittings that
the Committee would subpoena, and charge un-cooperating witnesses with perjury
and default, if it found grounds to do so.
The Public Accounts Committee is a committee
of Parliament consisting of not more than 25 Members and is chaired by a Member
who does not belong to the Party which controls the Executive branch of
Government.
The duty of the Committee is to examine the
audited accounts showing the appropriation of the sums granted by Parliament to
meet the public expenditure of the government as presented to the House by the
Auditor-General of Ghana.
GNA