The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee has rejected assertions by the Attorney General (A-G) that the Auditor-General has no power to publish his audit reports until it is submitted to and same is debated by Parliament.
James Klutse Avedzi said Auditor-General did nothing untoward for publishing the special audit on government’s Covid-19 expenditure.
The Ketu North MP added that the Auditor-General complied with the provisions of the 1992 Constitution.
According to him, the Article 187(5) mandates the Auditor-General to submit to Parliament, governement’s audited reports not less than six months after the end of the year.
This, the former Deputy Minority Leader has said.
“He [the Auditor General] just went in compliance with the law. The constitution said he should submit the report to Parliament, and he did that. The constitution also said he should publish the report, and he has done that.
“What he should look out for is the lacuna. Section 23 of the Audit Service Act should be amended so that after the Auditor General has submitted the report to Parliament, he should wait until the Public Accounts Committee debates the report before it can be published, but as it stands now, the Auditor General can publish without waiting for a debate on the report by PAC,” he said in an interview with Citi FM on Wednesday, February 8.
What did the Attorney-General say?
The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame has protested what he says is a premature publication of the report of the special audit on the Government’s COVID-19 transactions by the Auditor-General.
He has consequently asked the Auditor-General to unpublish the report, pending the fulfilment of constitutional injunctions leading to the ultimate publication, including submitting the report first to Parliament.
Publishing the report ahead of its scrutiny by Parliament or a committee of it, is unconstitutional, the A-G points out.
In a letter dated February 7, 2023 for the attention of the Auditor-General, Mr. Johnson Akuamoah-Asiedu, the Attorney-General referenced “various discussions between your good self and me regarding the effective implementation of reports of the Auditor-General on audits into the public accounts of Ghana, particularly with regard to the issuance of disallowances and surcharges,” and pointed out that “The matters discussed have become more pertinent in view of the intense controversy generated by the publication of the report on the special audit of Government of Ghana Covid-19 transactions for the period March 2020 to June 2022 on the website of the Ghana Audit Service.”
