Audit Service to launch tracker as GH¢280.5m in surcharges remains unpaid

Auditor-General, Dr Pamela Graham, has announced that the Ghana Audit Service will launch an online platform in October 2026 to track how public institutions are responding to recommendations contained in audit reports.

Speaking at the launch of the 2026 financial year audit on September 29, 2026, Dr Graham said the platform will track amounts identified for recovery, efforts made to retrieve such funds and monies eventually recovered.

Details of corrective, administrative and disciplinary actions taken in response to audit findings will also be available on the platform.

According to her, the tracker would help the Service identify recurring weaknesses within public institutions that continue to put state resources at risk.

“An audit report is the beginning of action, not the end,” she said.

The development comes as Chairperson of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Abena Osei-Asare, disclosed that GH¢280.5 million in surcharges arising from audit findings remains unpaid.

Osei-Asare said data from the Audit Service indicated that only a portion of the surcharges had been recovered.

She disclosed that approximately GH¢57.2 million had been retrieved through the Auditor-General’s recovery accounts since 2022, with the figure recorded as of February 2026.

She further noted that the 2025 reports covering ministries, departments and agencies revealed financial irregularities amounting to about GH¢5.2 billion. Of that amount, approximately GH¢4.8 billion was attributed to tax-related irregularities.

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“Finding the problem is not enough. Reporting is also not enough. Even debating on it in Parliament is not enough. There must be a follow through,” she said.

Auditor-General said the Audit Service had so far recovered GH¢17.6 billion and prevented approximately GH¢11.7 billion in wrongful payments from being made.

She said the Service would introduce interim audits at selected public institutions as part of efforts to detect problems earlier and prevent the continued build-up of prior-year adjustments.

The Service is also expected to increase its deployment of data analytics and forensic tools, while incorporating artificial intelligence into its work under appropriate safeguards.

She said the availability of sufficient data would allow auditors to move beyond examining selected samples and, in some cases, analyse entire populations of transactions.

A correspondence management system developed by the Audit Service will also be introduced to improve the handling of responses and submissions from audited institutions.

She identified five key priorities for the 2026 audit cycle: continuous engagement, timeliness, technology, people and impact.

Dr Graham also reminded institutions covered by the audit process that they are required under Article 187(5) of the 1992 Constitution to submit their reports to Parliament within six months.

She praised covered entities, including some state-owned enterprises, for submitting their financial statements within the required period and encouraged institutions that had fallen behind to regularise their submissions.

Dr Graham further stated that she would invoke the constitutional powers of disallowance and surcharge where public expenditure was determined to have breached the law.

She explained that individuals who may be subjected to a surcharge would first receive a notice of intention and be given 14 days to respond.

If the response is deemed unsatisfactory, a disallowance and surcharge certificate would be issued, with copies forwarded to the affected institution and the Attorney-General.

The individual would then have 60 days within which to appeal the surcharge.

“Every cedi lost through weak controls, unlawful expenditure, inefficiency or failure to act is a cedi withheld from education, healthcare, infrastructure, social protection,” she said.

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