Ketu District orders probe into accounts

Denu, June 12, GNA - The Ketu District Assembly last Thursday ordered an immediate auditing of the district assembly's accounts. This is to find out how an extra 750 million cedis HIPC grant, wrongly credited to the assembly in 2004 and not brought to the attention of the members or the Executive Committee or the assembly members, was disbursed. It is also to establish who authorized the award of 13 HIPC projects on contract in 2004 in addition to the two contracts the assembly authorized that year.

The auditors are to submit their report by June 30. The decision was prompted by a disclosure to the assembly by Mr Justice Cudjoe, the District Chief Executive, that the Ketu District Assembly would not receive any HIPC grant this year as a result of an oversight extra credit to Ketu in 2004. Mr Cudjoe said this in his sectional address at the opening session of a two-day general meeting of the assembly at Denu. He said apart from crediting the Ketu District with its rightful 750 million cedis grant that year, the Ho branch of the National Investment Bank, the distribution bank, erroneously gave Ketu an extra 750 million, which should have gone to the Keta District Assembly.

Mr Cudjoe said the bank, realizing the error, decided to withhold Ketu's 2006 HIPC grant to repay Keta for 2004 with interest. "NIB-Ho decided to treat the wrongful extra credit to Ketu as an overdraft and would therefore use Ketu's grant for this year in servicing that overdraft so as to repay Keta District for 2004", he said.

Mr Cudjoe said the assembly's development plan was to be affected, citing 13 HIPC projects now under construction and the final payment of retention fees to eight contractors who had completed their HIPC project.