News:
March 7, 2018
Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in Parliament, Dr. James Klutse Avedzi, has revealed that payments without supporting documents still persist in some Assemblies and senior high schools in the country.
According to the PAC Chairman, some Assemblies and schools visited by the committee in the three regions in the north, Brong Ahafo and Ashanti Region “what runs across is unsupported payment documents”.
While working on the Auditor-Generals report 2015 to 2016 that was referred to the House, which the committee is currently working on, he said in an interview.
He noted that there has been an improvement in general, but in some Assemblies and schools, the issue of unsupported payments keep repeating itself.
“If you take money from government coffers there must be a reason for taking that money, it is the voucher and all supporting documents that would explain what you use the money for”.
He further questioned why most of the Assemblies, schools visited, did not have supporting documents at the time of auditing by the district auditors, but were able to produce supporting documents whiles the PAC moved in.
“One is tempted to conclude that you later manufactured those documents, so they might not be genuine, this is one thing that runs through most of the institutions visited”.
He again pointed out that fuel purchased could not be accounted for, once you are going to start a journey you should be able to login that I am moving from town A to B, he indicated.
“These were not down initially, after a period of six month to one year, how do you remember all the places the vehicle visited for you to come and have this new login done?”
Dr. James Klutse Avedzi further revealed non-earn salaries in the Assemblies and schools are reducing drastically, adding, going forward he hopes it would be a thing of the past.
And blamed it on the institutions not reporting to the Controller and Account General, when officers resign or retires but they continue to take salaries and their names not deleted from the pay role system.
By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com