Probe PIAC report - O.B. Amoah to Auditor-General

The Auditor-General must, with immediate effect, follow-up on the report released by the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) which indicated that 50 per cent of the oil-funded projects in the three Northern regions were non-existent, O.B Amoah, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, has said.

PIAC will be meeting the Auditor-General (A-G) next week to assist in investigating oil-funded projects in the Northern Region.

According to the Chairman of the PIAC, Dr Steve Manteaw, it was necessary to ensure accountability in the expenditure of public funds, thus, the probe.

He said their findings have revealed that most of the projects the Mahama-led administration claimed it funded with oil money are non-existent, a situation, he said requires immediate attention.

Speaking in an interview with Accra News’ Abena Korantemaa Agyapong on Friday, 13 April 2018, Dr Manteaw said: “In 2016, we wrote to the Ministry of Finance requesting for the list of projects that have been funded with the oil cash in the country. The Ministry accordingly replied our letter and provided the list.

“We went to the Northern Region to inspect the projects only to find out that out of the six projects, half of them were non-existent. We then wrote to the Ministry again informing them of our findings but they failed to respond.”

He added: “We are meeting the Auditor-General next week to present our findings and evidence for further investigations into the projects that were undertaken in 2014.

“We will assist the Auditor-General to investigate this matter and let Ghanaians know what actually happened.”

Commenting on this development on TV3’s New Day programme on Saturday, 14 April 2018, Mr Amoah said: “This is a good report, it is a good way of checking how we manage our petroleum funds.”

He added: “We expect the Auditor-General to follow up on it to investigate and ask questions. I like the fact that they have referred to the A-G and the A-G must bring the culprits to book.”