Auditor-General must not just document, he must disallow and surcharge – Prof Kwaku Asare

A Fellow of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) claims that it is not in the national interest for the Ghana Audit Service to merely report on the corruption taking place in public institutions without taking any action to recover funds.

According to Prof. Kwaku Asare, the law mandates the Auditor-General to implement stringent measures that will assist the country to retrieve misappropriated or misused funds.

Prof Asare was, therefore, of the view that the Auditor-General should do more than just “document and memorialise” these occurrences.

He further added, “he should disallow and surcharge.”

Prof Asare made this assertion on JoyNews’ Newsfile Special Edition on Saturday.

A total of ¢17.4 billion in financial irregularities were cited by the Auditor-General in its latest report submitted to Parliament for the 2021 financial year.

The amount was a 36% increase compared to that of 2020.

This is the conclusion reached by the Auditor-General after an audit of the accounts of at least 101 institutions.

Similar audit reports conducted on institutions in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 show irregularities to the tune of GH₵ 12 billion, GH₵3 billion, GH₵ 5.4 billion, GH₵ 12.8 billion respectively.

On the back of this, Prof Asare says that the Auditor General’s Report has become an “annual ritual” that reminds the citizenry of the lack of accountability by public office holders.