Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, James Klutse Avedzi, has issued a terse warning to Assemblies that the Committee would no longer entertain receipts and invoices as proof of payments of financial infractions in the Auditor-General’s report.
He stressed that once the infraction is captured in the final report, the Committee would demand outright payment from the Assemblies.
The Chairman issued the warning Thursday 16th January 2020 during the public sitting of the Committee to examine some Auditor-General’s Reports referred to it.
The reports include the 2016 Management and Utilisation of the District Assemblies’ Common Fund and Other Statutory Funds and the 2015 Accounts of District Assemblies.
The chairman was prodded into action when Assemblies of the Volta Region took their turn at the Committee’s sitting.
Officials of the Hohoe Assembly presented receipts and invoices as proof of having cleared certain unsubstantiated expenditures in their audited books but which have found expression in the Auditor-General’s report for the year under review.
Mr. James Avedzi stated that the Committee has on several occasions issued warnings to Assemblies to ensure they address these expenditures in their audited accounts with their internal auditors before the auditor-general takes over the books.
According to him, if the infractions are not settled and the grace period of one month offered by the Auditor-General for these matters to be sorted out elapse, and is captured in the final report, PAC would demand outright refunds from the MMDAs during its public sittings.
He said, “We have agreed and they are aware that we would not be accepting issues of whether they have been cleared by the district or municipal auditor before we start looking at the 2017 report.”
“Once you did not clear yourself and the issue has been reported by the Auditor-General in his report to Parliament, it is going to be a straight-forward refund by you and not simply submitting receipts to cover it.”
“It might be a genuine thing but once evidence is not provided at the time of audit and the 30-day window after the audit, evidence has still not been provided of that expenditure and it hits the report and you appear before us, we will demand a refund of that money. Simple!”
“I believe it is going to make our work easy for us.”
He warned that the Committee is no longer going to accept invoices, receipts and payments any longer.
“We have been sounding this caution since 2017 and no excuses when we begin looking at the next report,” he stated.
