UPSA SRC President Suspended Over Failure To Render Proper Financial Accounts

The Students Representative Council President of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) has reportedly been indefinitely suspended over his failure to give a proper account of how he used some student funds.

UPSA SRC President, Peter MwinZumah, was expected to appear before the SRC General Assembly on Monday to answer questions on allegations that his office had misappropriated funds, but he failed to show up.

This led the General Assembly to, on Monday, February 24, move a motion for his suspension over his attitude towards the legislative body.

According to an Independent Audit Report, which was released last week, “the financial statement prepared by the Executive Council, in all material respect does not give a true and fair view of the financial position of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) as at the end of the first semester of the 2019/2020 academic year.”

For some of the offices, the auditor noted that there was “lack of source documents for some expenditure related transaction making it difficult to obtain evidence about the authenticity of the expenditure”

The report accused the SRC President, Peter MwinZumah, of writing cheques when he was unauthorized to do so.

“A cheque of GHC 1,525 has been written twice. Two cheques were written for one payment voucher for the same expenditure. A further investigation showed that one of the cheques was cancelled yet the cancelled cheque cannot be found and these cheques were both written by an unauthorized officer, the President,” a part of the report says.

“An amount of GHC 25,000 handled by the President which was used in organizing a project work training or seminar for final year student has been signed, approved and spent. However, there are no source documents for this transaction. The auditors cannot verify what this amount was spent on and whether or not the full amount was spent,” the reports add.

Peter MwinZumah denies allegations

In an earlier interview with the UPSA SRC President, he denied allegations that his office had misappropriated funds.

He said that he had approval from the General Assembly before using the money.

“There is no misappropriation anywhere. Before money goes out of the SRC coffers, it goes through the General Assembly. What this means is that the members are aware of every expense of the SRC. It is not as though someone went back to sign anything, we followed due processes. The fact that some do not like the programs doesn’t mean that funds have been misappropriated,” Peter MwinZumah told UniversNews

Peter MwinZumah insists that the Executive Council of the SRC has done nothing wrong in its expenditure as it respects the standards that the school has set for it.

“There is no issue at hand. All these are just hearsays. There is nothing that the Executive Council is doing wrong because of the standards of UPSA. We respect the standards of UPSA and we respect professionalism and we are going to ensure that we follow due processes and do due diligence. We are not scared of accountability,” he added.