By William Yaw Owusu
Tuesday, January 13, 2014
OccupyGhana, a
fast-growing non-political pressure group has intensified its demands to get
the Auditor-General to act on its report findings that identified
irregularities leading to loss of huge sums to the state.
According to the
pressure group, the Auditor-General since the 1992 Constitution came into being
has made numerous findings on irregularities on the part of public officials but
never acted to get a single culprit punished and it was time to put pressure on
him to act.
They have always
threatened that should the Auditor-General fail to act, they will proceed to
court to enforce the constitutional provisions setting out the functions of the
Auditor-General and after a back-and-forth argument, it appears OccupyGhana is
heading for court soon.
Warning Letter
The latest ‘warning
letter’ issued by the pressure group to the Auditor-General was signed by
George Andah, a leading member with the title: “Re: Request for the exercise of
the Auditor-General’s powers of disallowance and surcharge and notice of action”
and it sets 14-days for compliance.
The statement said on
January 9, 2015 the group wrote to the Auditor-General and disagreed with his “attempted
explanations and answers” which they said was “extremely inadequate and
entirely without merit,” in a previous demand for action which they had sent on
November 12, 2014.
“The Auditor-General has
misconstrued and then placed a unilateral, unreasonable and unconstitutional
limitation on the powers of Disallowance and Surcharge under the Constitution
(Article 187(7)(b)), the Audit Service Act, and the Audit Service Regulations”
They said further
that the Auditor-General “has manifestly, unreasonably and inexplicably
confused the Disallowance and Surcharge procedure under the Audit Service Act,
section 17, with the provisions of section 20 of the same Act, which only govern
the Report to Parliament.”
The pressure group
insisted that the Auditor-General “appears completely oblivious of further
powers of Disallowance and Surcharge under the Local Government Act,” adding that
he has given information concerning the setting up of a Joint Committee “to
look at cases spanning 2006 to 2011,”
and said it is “a manifestly inadequate
response to the requests for confirmation sought in the group’s November 12, letter.
Final Demand
As a final demand,
OccupyGhana said it has invited the Auditor-General to “agree with us that the
constitutional and statutory powers of Disallowance and/or Surcharge are much
more expansive than have been exercised in the past and have purportedly been
explained in the 9 December 2014 letter.”
They also want the
Auditor-General to “take urgent steps to issue all relevant Disallowances
and/or Surcharges from the coming into force of the Constitution to date.”
Initial request
The pressure group had
specifically asked the Auditor-General to make details of any scheme of rewards
established for persons who provided information leading to successful recovery
of funds arising from audits undertaken into reported cases and whether there
have been any reported cases since it was set up.
They wanted copies of
any specifications/certifications of Disallowance and/or Surcharge ever issued
to and served on any Heads of Departments/Institutions under the Audit Service
Act or affected persons under the Local Government Act as well as a copy of the
certification issued in the one court case involving a Surcharge referred to by
the Auditor-General.
They further demanded
copies of ‘adverse comments’ received from Parliament and 'Development
Partners' about the Disallowance and Surcharge powers.
“OccupyGhana has
given the Auditor-General notice that upon failure, refusal or neglect to
confirm in writing within 14 days, to meet these legitimate and reasonable
demands, which have the potential of recovering tens of millions of Ghana Cedis
for Ghana, OG shall immediately commence legal proceedings,” the statement said.
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