Upper East Treasury Officer misappropriate 500 million cedis

Accra, March 13, GNA - The Upper East Regional Treasury Officer, Mr George Gyapong with the connivance of others misappropriated a total amount of 500,164,329 cedis.

Two former District Treasury Officers of the Region in 1997 also drew cheques totalling 46,609,800 cedis in the name of some suppliers and other officials in some government departments and misappropriated the amount.

Further, an Accountant of Hohoe Government Hospital misappropriated revenues collected amounting to 47,083,920 cedis. The Accountant was able to do this because he was allowed to keep cash receipts for a long period of time before paying into Government chest.

These were contained in the "Report Of The Public Accounts Committee On The Auditor-General's Reports On The Public Accounts Of Ghana For The Years Ended 31st December, 1998 and 1999, presented to Parliament on Friday.

The Committees said the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Food and Agriculture recorded the worst misappropriation, adding that that a total of about 933 million cedis and 93 million cedis was noted to have either been misappropriated or embezzled by officials of the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education, respectively, from 1997 to 1999.

The Report attributed the trend to lack of supervision and said Officers entrusted with public revenues are not closely monitored by their superiors to ensure that such revenues were either used for the purposes intended or paid into public chest.

The Report said the misappropriations could have either been avoided or minimised if Supervising Officers ensured that officials entrusted to collect revenues for the State, promptly lodged such monies into Government accounts.

Another noticeable cause of the high rate of misappropriation and embezzlement within the public sector is the inadequate numbers of professional accounts officers.

The Report observed that officers with little or no knowledge in accounting or the rules governing financial administration in the Public Service are often made to take charge of such matters as a result of the absence of qualified officers.

This situation, it said, was particularly prevalent within the Regional and District Units since the few qualified officers in these Ministries often refused posting to the rural and deprived areas. The Report said in cases where these lapses were detected, there was lack of commitment in applying the required sanctions, adding that the sanctioning regime as stipulated in the Financial Administrative Directives (FAD) and Financial Administration Regulation (FAR) and the various Finance and Accounting Instructions were also outmoded and not deterrent enough.

"These laws are outdated and do not now serve the purpose for which they were intended. What is more worrying is that where these lapses were detected, the sanctions were not applied at all while in some cases the officers were merely transferred to another department to take charge of higher responsibilities.

"Some officers of the Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD) against whom adverse findings were made, were transferred to other departments without the knowledge and consent of the Head of Institution where the malfeasance was detected.

"This attitude of CAGD seriously undermined effective and efficient financial administration of the MDAs (Ministries, Departments and Agencies).

The Report said: "Another cause of the continued recurrence of the above financial malfeasance is the weak internal audit system in MDAs.

"Internal audit is meant to act as the first line of financial controls and accountability. Yet internal audit departments compromised their positions and in many cases are marginalized by their Management."

The Report said in situations where internal audit was able to detect some lapses, some Managements failed to take prompt action on the report adding that some of these internal audit reports ended up on the shelves, even though they could have been dealt with and some recoveries made promptly.