This morning I have decided to spend some time to educate the public on issues that are normally contained in the Auditor General’s Reports to parliament and the Public Accounts Committee. I have been hearing many people including the educated always saying the state lost several billions as a result of corruption and this they claimed are contained in the Auditor General’s report. I think this narrations are not only dangerous but also threatens our democracy and undermines good Governance.
I am a member of the public accounts committee of parliament of Ghana and it’s never true that the state lost such amounts through corruption as many people always puts out.
The Auditor General report covers three broad issues;
- Mismanagement which basically is about tax irregularities. Tax irregularities is not about corruption but rather the inability of the tax agencies to collect taxes that are due the state. This forms about 55% of the issues in the report and the Auditor General normally puts all the amount together in the report. In the 2016 and 2017 alone tax irregularities amounted to over 6 billion. This also does not mean those taxes were never collected by the Agencies. In fact about 80% of this tax irregularities are collected before we sit publicly but the Auditor General report doesn’t report on that because before those monies are collected the Auditor General had long finished with his work.
- Misapplication which is largely about contract irregularities. This covers about 30% of the issues in the Auditor General’s report. This is about the inability of the various MDAs to provide documentary support for contracts that were awarded. It also covers the inability of the MDAs to adhere to the procurement laws. Lastly it covers infrastructural projects that have been executed but have been abandoned by the MDAs due to funds to complete them. The values put on this alone by the Auditor General is about 4 billion between 2016 – 2017. These are monies that have not been lost but rather the MDAs failed to follow all the laws. In fact before the Public Account committee sits about 85% of this issues have already been resolved with proof to the committee from MDAs.
- Misappropriation
This is where the problem is and its basically talks about cash irregularities. Cash irregularities is about unearned salaries and unaccounted monies.
The unearned salaries are monies the state lose as a result of our in ability to stop the salaries of workers that are either on retirement or have left the public service’s. These are salaries the CAGD continues to pay some undeserving people who are no longer with the public service.
The second is the unaccounted monies which basically is about monies the MDAs paid to various people or contractors but could not support the payments with documents. Misappropriation covers about 15% of the issues in the Auditor General’s report. Between 2016/17 the state lost about 2 billion through misappropriation. Here again though it’s against the public financial management Act and the Audit Service Act for any MMDAs to engage in any misappropriation they are able to recover alone about 40 – 45% of such monies that cannot be accounted for through surcharges and disallowances by the Auditor General.
I think all of us especially the educated must endeavor to read every page of the Auditor General’s reports and get full understanding of the issues before we go publicly to put any information out which are either inaccurate or false.
To conclude on this matter it’s never true that the state has lost 12 billion through corruption and these are facts contained in the Auditor General’s report. A chunk of the issues raised in the report are just administrative and supervisory problems. These are matters we should do everything possible to improve on it to ensure that we collect every penny for the state.
