Ghana's Missing Billions: What 16 years of Auditor-General reports show

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• Great one 12 hours ago

  I remember clearly that I was in Ghana July 3, 2007, the very day a redenominated currency was introduced in Ghana, I remember this because some events have a way to stick in memory.
  
  On that day, I changed money to have ac ...
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  I remember clearly that I was in Ghana July 3, 2007, the very day a redenominated currency was introduced in Ghana, I remember this because some events have a way to stick in memory.
  
  On that day, I changed money to have access to the new currency because being a visitor, only the banks could give me the new currency so I received Ghs 940 to $1000 from a forex bureau, day before that day, it would have been 940,000,I had drank a bottle of Castle milk stout 2 days before for 12,000 cedis and on that day, I was again having it as my first buy with the nes money, I was to pay Ghs1:20 pesewas but the seller woman refused to accept my new money, it looked too little to her,it was like I was cheating her and I knew then that Ghana economy had entered one chance, a popular crime in Lagos back then where robbers pretend to be transporters call out that only one chance was remaining and then one victim feeling lucky hops in hence the name of the crime only for them to rob the person along the way.
  
  Today, that $1000 will give how much, what happened and how did it happen? How much is that same bottle of castle milk stout cost today?this auditor generals report could provide answers

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• Pelicles 8 hours ago

  How old are you when JJ took power? He recalled all the 50-cedi notes then the biggest currency in Ghana and printed 500-and 5000-cedi notes. His reason was, the 50 cedis had destroyed the economy, and the new currency will m ...
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  How old are you when JJ took power? He recalled all the 50-cedi notes then the biggest currency in Ghana and printed 500-and 5000-cedi notes. His reason was, the 50 cedis had destroyed the economy, and the new currency will make it better so, just do the mathematics.
  
  The millions, millions which is now part of our daily vocabulary started under JJ because during Acheampong's government, 100 cedis was not regarded a One million cedis.
  
  Now, when Kufuor became president, he reversed the trend, but some Ghanaians did not understand that.

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• Togbe KT 11 hours ago

  The Auditor-General’s reports must be taken seriously, but they must also be represented accurately. Calling GH¢129.8 billion in “financial irregularities” “Ghana’s missing billions” creates an impression that GH ...
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  The Auditor-General’s reports must be taken seriously, but they must also be represented accurately. Calling GH¢129.8 billion in “financial irregularities” “Ghana’s missing billions” creates an impression that GH¢129.8 billion was stolen by governments or disappeared from the public purse. That is not what the Auditor-General’s terminology means.
  
  The Auditor-General reports financial irregularities, not proven theft. An irregularity can include unsupported documentation, procurement breaches, unretired imprest, unaccounted revenue, payroll issues, tax irregularities, contract issues and other control failures. The independent database behind this article itself cautions that an irregularity is an audit finding, not a criminal conviction or proof that money was stolen.
  
  There is another important problem with the political interpretation. The figures are assigned to whichever government was in office during the financial year being audited. That is a methodology for classification; it does not establish that the political party or its ministers personally caused every irregularity. The database itself explicitly says grouping by administration “is not an attribution of responsibility.”
  
  As an NPP member, I will not pretend that everything was perfect under the NPP government. The Auditor-General identified serious irregularities during the 2017–2024 period, and those findings should be investigated and recovered where appropriate. But intellectual honesty requires us to distinguish an audit query from a confirmed loss and a confirmed loss from theft.
  
  There is also evidence of improvement during the NPP period. For the 2023 financial year, the Auditor-General reported GH¢11.32 billion in irregularities, a 32% reduction from GH¢16.57 billion in 2022. The Auditor-General attributed the improvement partly to implementation of audit recommendations, timely funding of the Audit Service and action by Parliament.
  
  And the record does not support the suggestion that the Auditor-General’s work stopped at identifying problems. The Audit Service established an Auditor-General’s Recoveries Account and has published specific reports tracking recoveries from disallowed expenditure. An earlier Audit Service account also records more than GH¢2.2 billion recovered between 2017 and 2020 from reported irregularities.
  
  Most importantly, the same methodology being used to criticise the NPP shows why political headlines must be treated carefully. The largest single year in the 2010–2025 dataset was 2021, with about US$3.1 billion in reported irregularities. But the dataset itself warns that a high figure does not necessarily mean more money was stolen; it can reflect wider audit coverage, changes in what was classified as an irregularity, or exchange-rate effects.
  
  So let us debate Ghana’s public finances honestly.
  
  If someone stole public money, name the person, identify the amount, show the audit finding, show the recovery or court action and establish the loss.
  
  But we should not take every audit query, multiply it across 16 years and then present the resulting figure as money “stolen” or “missing.” That is political rhetoric, not proper accounting.
  
  The NPP should be held accountable where the evidence demands it. But the NDC should be held to exactly the same standard. Ghana needs accountability based on audit evidence, recoveries, prosecutions and court judgments — not sensational headlines.
  
  Facts must come before partisan spin.

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• Pelicles 9 hours ago

  You are a learned Ghanaian who understands some of the "Audit Terminologies" but to the guy on the street, the term "Irregularities" in relation to monies, means theft by a Ghanaian who is either a government appointee or som ...
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  You are a learned Ghanaian who understands some of the "Audit Terminologies" but to the guy on the street, the term "Irregularities" in relation to monies, means theft by a Ghanaian who is either a government appointee or something.

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