The Head of the Local Government Service (LGS), Dr Nana Ato Arthur, has hinted that, the service will soon begin sanctioning staff of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) as well as the Regional Coordinating Councils (RCCs) that may cause any financial infraction from now on.
This, he said, would help the service reduce or stop the financial infractions within the RCCs and the MMDAs that were captured in the 2018 Auditor General’s Report.
According to Nana Arthur, the transmittal letter from the Auditor General to Parliament on the 2018 Auditor General’s Report stated that, the increase and recurring of financial infractions at the assemblies and the RCCs were as a result of the failure of the LGS and the sector Minister to sanction staff for their negligence in 2017.
Nana Arthur disclosed this at the opening of a two-day refresher training for 112 internal auditors at the various MMDAs and RCCs in the Ashanti and Western North regions at Ejisu.
He explained that, the forms of sanctions to be imposed included demotion, dismissal and transfer, among others as he stated the only way for staff to avoid these sanctions, was maintaining high level of professionalism and exhibit confidentiality in the discharge of their duties.
Nana Arthur, however, urged participants to work diligently in spite of all the challenges they faced and not allow the challenges to defeat the purpose of the creation of the Internal Audit Unit which was to carry out an independent appraisal of the accounting and safeguard the assets of the service as well as evaluate the internal control process at the various assemblies and RCCs.
Participants were taken through topics like the introduction to laws and regulations on internal auditing, risk-based auditing, executing the audit documentation and managing relationship with stakeholders of audit information at the local level.
The rest were contract management auditing, procurement of works, preparing and presenting audit report to management and other stakeholders as well as revenue of audit.
FROM KINGSLEY E.HOPE, EJISU
