Interdicted PWD officials challenge Auditor-General

The seven interdicted officials of the Public Works Department (PWD) at the weekend challenged the recent Auditor-General’s (AG) investigation alleging that they forged Pay Vouchers (PVs) to dupe the state of ?59.8m.

They also denied a police claim that they had been picked up for investigations, describing it as an atrocious lie. They maintained that since they were discharged by an Accra Regional Tribunal on 2 December last year after it threw out the case against them for lack of evidence nothing had happened.

It was therefore, wrong, they contended, for them to continue to be on interdiction at the pleasure of the acting AG, Edward Dua-Agyemang, at a time when there was “no case against them.”

Reacting to last Wednesday’s lead story of The Ghanaian Times, three of the affected persons, who were at the paper’s head office in Accra, described the accusation of forgery and malfeasance against them as a baseless harassment. They are Paul K. Boafo, Regional Engineer, Ernest Abrokwa, Senior Quantity Surveyor and S.N.A. Ahulu, Accra District Superintendent.

According to them, it was strange that the name of the accountant, Johnson Kwabena Adjei, who evidently prepared and authorised payments of the PVs in question, was totally missing from the list of officers who were interdicted.

The group explained that all PVs were handled and signed by Adjei, who also signed and issued cheques for payments to casual workers. They therefore, wondered how they could forge PVs and sign cheques as alleged to withdraw money from the Bank of Ghana (BOG).

Giving a background to the case, Boafo said that in July last year, they were accused of preparing PVs for non-existent casual workers and consequently interdicted pending the outcome of investigations.

They were arraigned before an Accra Regional Tribunal on 12 August but the case was struck off on 2 December due to lack of evidence and were discharged subsequently. The Regional Engineer noted that the affected officials were not recalled to work but strangely 10 days after the court discharged them, the AG on 12 December sent a letter to the acting Engineer-in-Chief, PWD Head Office to confirm the interdiction of Odonkor, Ahulu and Boafo, for allegedly making fictitious entries on PVs and fraudulently claiming ?196.9m.

“It is surprising and unfortunate that for almost two months now, this allegation has not been proved. Neither myself nor Ahulu has received any audit queries, report or observation on the allegation to enable us to make appropriate comments,” Boafo said.

“We have also not been invited for interrogation or investigation but we are still sitting at home on interdiction,” he added.

The group dared the AG to send the issue to court for its determination, if he really had fresh evidence as claimed and stop leaking distorted information to the media.