Kenneth Kuntukunuku Ofori-Atta
In a bombshell audit report that’s rocked the nation, the Auditor General has laid bare the shocking mishandling of public funds during the government’s COVID-19 response. The special audit, under Section 16 of the Audit Service Act, 2000 (Act 584), was presented to Parliament by Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu, the Auditor-General of Ghana Audit Service, on 30 December 2022.
The audit, which scrutinized government COVID-19 spending from March 2020 to June 2022, reveals a jaw-dropping spree of reckless spending and procedural flouting by top government officials.
One glaring instance of this fiscal fiasco? On 6 May 2020, the Ministry of Finance doled out a whopping GH¢23,388,750 to Smart Infraco Limited for Smart Workspace platforms meant for MDAs. But guess what? They completely skipped out on withholding tax, letting GH¢1,754,156.25 slip through the cracks! The Auditor General’s team has demanded that the Ministry claw back that cash and hand it over to the Commissioner-General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
But that’s not all, folks! The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development wasn’t left out of this scandalous saga. Despite Regulation 78 of the Public Financial Management Regulation (PFMR), they splashed out GH¢285,135.64 on 10 payments that had nothing to do with COVID-19 activities. The Auditor General’s report is clear: the Chief Director needs to refund every cedi of that GH¢285,135.64 to the Auditor-General’s recoveries account.
And where’s the money now? As of press time, the silence from the authorities on this front is deafening. Our repeated inquiries about the refund of GH¢285,135.64 to the Auditor-General’s recoveries account have gone unanswered.
Meanwhile, as this financial debacle unfolds, the Ghanaian taxpayer is left holding the bag. The public is still being squeezed by a COVID-19 levy tax at a rate of 1% on the value of taxable supply for goods and services in Ghana, except for a few exclusions.
It’s a scandal of epic proportions, raising serious questions about accountability and governance during a time when every cedi should have counted. As the nation waits for answers and action, the pressure is on those responsible to face the music and for the mismanaged millions to be rightfully returned.
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