Foreign Affairs Ministry requests special audit of evacuation spending dating back to 2017

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked the Auditor-General to conduct a special audit of government-funded emergency evacuation exercises undertaken since 2017, including the recent evacuation of Ghanaians from South Africa.

The request, contained in a letter to the Auditor-General and sighted by GhanaWeb, seeks an independent review of the financial and administrative arrangements surrounding evacuations organised to assist Ghanaian nationals facing risks abroad.

The Ministry said the audit was necessary given the scale and complexity of emergency evacuations, which often require government institutions to make urgent arrangements for transportation, accommodation, logistics, consular assistance, and medical and psychosocial support.

The review is expected to cover at least four major evacuation exercises: the COVID-19 evacuations in 2020, the Ukraine evacuation in 2022, the Sudan evacuation in 2023, and the recent South Africa evacuation in 2026.

The Ministry has also invited the Auditor-General to include any other evacuation exercise considered relevant to the review.

According to the letter, the audit is intended to provide an independent assessment of how public funds were used during the evacuation exercises, taking into account the exceptional and emergency circumstances under which they were conducted.

The Ministry said the exercise should also identify lessons that could improve its preparedness and internal controls for future emergencies.

It has also requested that the Auditor-General provide a separate assessment of each evacuation exercise, detailing the findings, costs, observations, and recommendations.

The audit is also expected to identify common issues across the various operations and recommend measures to address them.

The latest request comes as the Ministry faces scrutiny from the Minority over expenditure on the evacuation of Ghanaians from South Africa following xenophobic attacks.

The government has put the total cost of that operation at GH¢49.72 million, covering the evacuation and related support for affected citizens.

The Ministry has since responded to a Right to Information (RTI) request from the Deputy Ranking Member of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Committee, Nana Asafo-Adjei Ayeh, with a more than 200-page report on the South Africa operation.

The special audit, however, goes beyond the latest evacuation and will cover government evacuation exercises dating back to 2017.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has assured the Auditor-General of its full cooperation and said it would make available relevant financial and administrative records in its possession to facilitate the exercise.

The Ministry said the broader review is intended to strengthen transparency, accountability, and good governance while improving the government’s ability to respond to future emergencies involving Ghanaians abroad.

The request therefore places the financial management of several major overseas evacuation operations over the past decade before an independent audit by the Auditor-General.