State loses GH¢5,800,000 due to irregularities in Assemblies- Report

Tamale, Aug. 23, GNA - Audited accounts of some district assemblies between 2001 and 2004, has revealed that the state lost over GH¢5,800,000 due to disregard to laid down procedures in the disbursement of funds.

The Auditor-Generals report, which revealed this, identified that some of the assemblies failed to follow proper procedures in the award of contracts, misused, misappropriated and embezzled revenues, as well as failed to recover loans and track expenditure.

Mr Albert Kan Dapaah, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, announced this at a public hearing of the Committees' sittings of some district assemblies from the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions in Tamale on Sunday. He said for instance out of the 139 district assemblies in the country, 59 of them had been given audit queries, which they had so far failed to respond to and warned that in future such assemblies would not receive any further allocation of public funds.

Mr Dapaah reminded the assemblies that funds allocated to them from central government were from donor countries or loans and grants, which had to be paid, adding that it was therefore necessary to render account of how such monies were spent. He expressed concern about the expenditure of the assemblies and noted that a lot of their funds went into administration instead of development projects.

Mr Dapaah said although the assemblies had the tendency of complaining of lack of funds, it had also been observed that monies were often returned to the banks and questioned why this was happing. The Chairman, who is also the Member of Parliament for Afigya-Sekyere, described the public sittings ongoing in the regions, as historic and said this was to ensure that people got to know how funds meant for the development of their areas were used.