Audit Service to be strengthened to fight corruption

Accra, Nov. 4, GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor on Tuesday said the Government was initiating prudent measures that would transform the Audit Service into an independent and financially self-accounting body to fight corruption in the Public Service.

"Government will give the Audit Service all the support it deserves and from the year 2004 onwards the country shall see a much more independent and capable Audit Service," he said.

The President said this in a speech read for him by Dr Samuel Nii Noi Ashong, Minister of State, Finance and Economic Planning, to open a five-day Annual Review Meeting of the African Organisation of English Speaking Supreme Audit Institutions (AFROSAI-E) and the South African Development Commission Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (AFRODSAI).

President Kufuor said for the first time in the history of the Service, Government had approved without any reduction the Service's 2003 annual budget.

It also approved the opening of a separate operational bank account of the service to detach it from the national treasury system. He said steps were being taken to overcome bottlenecks such as administrative impediments as far as the determination of conditions of service and manpower resources were concerned.

President Kufuor asked the delegates, to adopt a plan of operation that would provide short and long-term direction for SAIs on the continent, specifically on the auditing of information systems. He said SAIs have crucial responsibility to safeguard the use of public resources saying, "in Ghana I have described the cycle of this activity as "Zero Tolerance for Corruption" which is the bedrock of good governance everywhere".

He reiterated that fighting corruption should originate from the individual level where each and everyone should be a guardian standing at the gate where any thought or act of corruption could emanate. "For if the individual, who makes up the state are not prepared to stop acts that bred corruption, then the institutions they serve will be corrupt right from their inception and there will be no end to corruption, zero tolerance or not," President Kufuor noted.

He said Government recognised the need for concrete measures to be put in place to deter the commission of acts of corruption and to encourage the exposure of those who did not want to avoid it.

"That is why Government is putting in place the necessary legislation (The Whistle Blowers Act) that will legalise this motivation and also complement the work of the several institutions already in existence to fight against corruption and other malpractices and misuse of public funds," President Kufuor said.

Ghana for the first time is hosting the meeting, which would provide English-speaking Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) the opportunity to examine the problems confronting Auditors on the continent.

The 41 heads of African SAI drawn from 22 countries would deliberate on issues such as human rights, democracy, good governance, environmental protection, capacity building, poverty and corruption. Mr Edward Dua Ageyman, Ghana's Auditor - General, said the meeting would also endeavour to look at factors such as inadequate resources, trained and insufficient staff that militated against SAIs efforts in achieving their goals and objectives.

He said the new dimensions auditing had attained should signalled that society expected more than just adding up figures and expressing opinions from the Auditors.

Mr Dua-Agyeman said currently, the Audit Service had increased its scope from financial auditing to such areas as environmental audit, performance audit and forensic audit.

He said there was the need to reengineer strategies and working methods to deliver respective countries from the entrenchment and stranglehold of poverty, corruption, human rights abuses, preventable diseases and the slow pace of economic development and growth.