Ghana Audit Service wins best performance audit report in Africa

Accra, April 28, GNA - Mr Edward Dua Agyeman, Auditor-General of Ghana Audit Service on Tuesday presented an award won by the service for submitting the best performance audit report in Africa. The report that won the award was the "Management of Police Residential Accommodation in Ghana".

Presenting the award to staff in Accra, Mr Agyeman said "I collected it on behalf of the performance audit department, it reflects the great credit of the department and in particular the team that worked on the report".

Performance audit is an audit of economy, efficiency and effectiveness on how public institutions use resources given to them by Parliament.

Mr Agyeman received the inaugural award at the 6th Governing Board meeting of AFROSAI E in Lusaka, Zambia on April 21, this year. The Swedish National Audit Office organised the competition among 23 members to promote development of performance audit in the AFROSAI E region.

The award was externally assessed by experienced performance auditors from Norway, United Kingdom and the Netherlands by beating off fierce competition particularly from Supreme Audit Institutions of South Africa and Botswana. AFROSAI E is a regional organisation of English-Speaking African Supreme Audit Institutions with 23 members including Ghana Audit Service.

It was to promote sharing of experiences and best practice in the performance audit to highlight efforts made by performance auditors in the region.

The Audit Service Act 2000, 584 gives the service powers to undertake performance audits. The review team considered that the report would be valuable to parliamentarians and decision makers.

The report recommended that the police administration should implement its proposal to use police acquired lands as equity to obtain private financing to develop commercial and residential facilities and accommodation for police personnel.

It recommended that Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies should be contacted to assist in providing the accommodation needs of police personnel in their areas to enhance police presence and security.