Dr Daniel Appiah, a public administration expert at the University of Ghana Business School, has expressed his disappointment in the performance of the Auditor General, Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu.
According to him, the Auditor General isn’t living up to the expectation for which he has been placed in office. He revealed that the Auditor General has been tasked to ensure efficient use of the country’s monies, disallow expenditure and to surcharge those who have not used monies well and consequently recover it.
Nonetheless, Dr Appiah indicated that since he assumed office, Mr Asiedu has not recovered any money and that the only money he has recovered is the GHC2.2 billion that the former Auditor General, Daniel Domelevo, surcharged people for during his tenure.
“Since he assumed office, he has not been able to recover a penny from the single surcharge that he has issued.So, he’s certainly not living up to expectation. I think that when we come to the details of the report itself, there are many questions we ask as to whether he is really doing a good job in terms of due diligence even with the issue of the report that he has come up with. So, I won’t by any stroke of my pencil say he’s doing a good job…”
Dr Daniel Appiah
Describing the latest A-G report for which government institutions were cited for various financial irregularities as “revealing and a bit disturbing”, Dr Appiah stated that in the report, the Auditor General failed to surcharge people for wrongdoing and to refund any money. Comparatively, he noted that the Auditor General in his last report issued concerning the recovery of monies for surcharges, revealed that he will only issue a surcharge when sufficient evidence has been adduced.
“So, if you look at this report and you don’t find anywhere where anyone has been surcharged, my conclusion is that he doesn’t have sufficient evidence or has not gathered sufficient evidence that anyone has misappropriated any money for the money to be recovered.”
Dr Daniel Appiah
Surcharging of persons complicit in financial irregularities
Commenting on the COVID-19 special audit report, Dr Appiah stated that the largest amount of money came from those who bought government bonds amounting to some $10 billion. Currently, he explained that these persons are suffering as there are many areas where expenditures have not been appropriately utilized.
“We are told that no one has done anything to warrant a refund or be surcharged for wrongful use of the expenditure. I think the third major aspect that I find disturbing, is where donor partners continue to make payments, millions of dollars, for COVID vaccines that have not been delivered and I think that this is very worrying. We have to ask ourselves whether our donor partners are really here to help us, or they are here to make profits from our sweats.”
Dr Daniel Appiah
Juxtaposing the ability of the former Auditor General, Daniel Domelevo, to surcharge persons found guilty of wrongdoing against the current A-G, Mr Asiedu, Dr Appiah stated that there is nothing necessarily wrong with the inability of Mr Asiedu to surcharge.
He elaborated that with the previous report that the Auditor General came up with in October 2022, he issued a surcharge of GH1.5 billion, which he recommended that the Attorney General should actually follow up with the recovery of the money. However, due to the seeming lack of action on the matter, he has in a way relaxed on issuing surcharges.
“That was the only surcharge this Auditor General claims to have issued. So, if after issue that surcharge of GHC1.5 billion from October to present, and that was even after our demonstration when we went to picket at the Auditor General’s office… If after that single surcharge, nothing has been done about it, why should he continue to surcharge?”
Dr Daniel Appiah
The public administration expert emphasized that once the President has commended the Auditor General for the consistent issuing of reports, the likelihood of keeping up with such reports and not surcharging are high. This, he explained, is because the Auditor General was praised by the President not for recovering monies, but for issuing reports.
“If at the end of the day, your predecessor surcharged and he was booted out of office and you have issued a single surcharge and nothing has been done about it, at least to the best of our knowledge we have not heard that that money has been recovered, why will you continue to surcharge?”
Dr Daniel Appiah
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