RTICLE 187 of the 1992 Constitution mandates the Auditor-General to audit the public accounts of Ghana and of all public offices, including the courts, central and local government administrations, the universities and similar public institutions and any other corporation, organisation or body established by an Act of Parliament.
The Constitution further provides, in the same article, that within six months of such audit, the Auditor-General is required to submit his report to Parliament and he shall, in the report, draw attention to irregularities in the audited accounts and any other matter which, in his opinion, should be brought to the attention of Parliament.
However, this important constitutional provision has not been a regular feature in our 15-year old democratic experiment. That is because the auditing, compilation and presentation of the Auditor-General’s Report to Parliament have often been outstanding, in some instances for as long as eight years.
The difficulty has mainly been attributed to inadequate funding, logistics and staff for the Audit Service to enable it to deliver this enormous responsibility to the letter. Nonetheless, in the face of all the difficulties, the Auditor-General has, in recent years, demonstrated zeal and tenacity of purpose to address the problem by trying to bring the auditing, compilation and presentation of his report up to date.
The recent revelations at the hearings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on the Auditor-General’s Report for 2004 and 2005, in which more than ¢600 billion of state funds is reported to have gone down the drain, bear ample testimony to the commitment of the Auditor-General to save the nation from losing such colossal amounts of money.
Nonetheless, the fact that not all the districts and the country’s foreign missions are audited every year, as a result of inadequate funding and resources, and the realisation that the service could do better than what it is presently doing, given the necessary resources, do not give reason for anyone to rejoice over whatever amount would be retrieved following the exposure at the hearings.
It is with this understanding that the Daily Graphic welcomes the challenge thrown to the government yesterday by the Auditor-General, Mr Edward Dua Agyeman, to provide adequate funding for the Audit Service and reap enormous benefits in terms of savings of billions of cedis that would have been lost to the state.
There is a lot more waste in the management of public accounts simply because the auditing net has not been cast wide enough. Moreover, the constraints being faced by the service may not permit it to do a thorough and comprehensive job that will expose all the rot in the system.
Again, increasing funding for the service will enable it to employ and train more staff, as well as acquire the necessary logistics to carry out its functions more effectively. At the moment, the Audit Service has only 65 offices in the 138 districts in the country and that makes it extremely difficult for the staff to cover the entire nation.
The Daily Graphic wishes to urge the government to accept the Auditor-General’s challenge by providing the service with adequate funding and resources to facilitate its work. After all, the Good Book says to whom much is given, much is required.
In the same manner, it is imperative that the government gives serious attention to the adequate resourcing of institutions established under the Constitution, such as Parliament, to enable them to rigidly hold on to the purse string of the government.
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