The Member of Parliament (MP) for Builsa South Constituency in the Upper East Region, Clement Apaak, has questioned the lack of action from the Auditor General to disallow and surcharge to recover public funds.
“The 2020 and 2021 Auditor General reports on Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) alone, which he superintends over, indicates that GH¢12 billion and GH¢17 billion cannot be accounted for respectively yet, he is not disallowing and surcharging,” he complained.
Dr Apaak noted that he had confronted Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu, the Auditor General himself on the issue but was yet to respond to the issues saying “as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I confronted him on the issue at a workshop and I had hoped that would ginger him to apply the power to disallow and surcharge in the public interest, but to no avail”.
A statement issued in Accra said because of the attitude of the Auditor General he has become convinced that he was not working in the public interest and he was not helping to protect the public purse.
“It is a shame that rather than working against corruption, the refusal of Mr Asiedu to disallow and surcharge is enhancing corruption instead of reducing it and I wonder why the current Auditor General has refused to use the power to disallow and surcharge to recover public funds when Daniel Yaw Domelevo used same to recover GH¢ 66million.
“The power to disallow and surcharge was affirmed by the Supreme Court in the OccupyGhana case, and Mr Domelevo gave it effect, until he was hounded out of office, strangely his successor, Mr Asiedu, has refused to use his authority to disallow and surcharge because the 2020 and 2021 Auditor General reports on Ministries, Departments and Agencies attest to that,” the statement noted.
It said Dr Apaak was now convinced that Mr Asiedu was not working in the public interest, not helping to protect the public purse but enhancing the dissipation of public resources which was a shame that rather than working against corruption, his refusal to disallow and surcharge was enhancing corruption and not minimising it.
The statement insisted that an Auditor General whose work was against the public interest was not fit for purpose and ought not to be tolerated since a public officer must work in the public interest.
