A Civil Society Organization, Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA) has urged the Auditor General (AG) to comply with the laws by using his powers of surcharge and disallowance in order to save Ghana.
The 2021 Auditor General report recorded some GHC17.4 billion in financial irregularities.
The development has triggered anti-corruption campaigners to call on the Auditor-General to surcharge and disallow misappropriated funds as provided for by the Constitution of Ghana.
The Executive Director of FOSDA, Theodora Anti who joined other CSOs in protest against the A-G indicated that corruption and financial malfeasance are high-level threats to achieving the security of any society.
“Corruption undermines economy, education, food, health, youth development and other securities which are directly creating insecurity and violence.
“If Ghana is to maintain its enviable position as the second most peaceful country in Africa and the first in West Africa, then the Auditor General must comply with the law,” she told Starr News.
Likewise, the Coalition for Democratic Accountability and Inclusive Governance (Citizens’ Coalition) during a demonstration on September 5, 2022, also impressed on the Auditor-General to surcharge persons implicated in the 2019 and 2020 Auditor-General’s reports.
The group made up of several CSOs believes that if the Auditor-General is able to recover such monies lost through various financial infractions and irregularities at the MDAs, the country may shelve its plans of seeking an IMF bailout.
“If you add 2020 and 2019, you will get about GHc48 billion. The amount of money we’re going to the IMF for is how much? If you convert it you’re talking less the one of these years. In other words if he’d retrieved any of the amounts from 2019, 2020, 2021, we do not need to go to the IMF. Does that make sense? The maths is simple, GHc 48bn irregularities – monies lost in three years, the amount you’re going for from the IMF is about a third of that. If the Auditor-General retrieves these monies, do we need to go to the IMF?
“If we are able to retrieve these sums of money it makes our economy much more stable. If the Auditor-General performs we’ll not have to run around looking for loans,” one of the conveners of the coalition told Starr News ahead of a protest in Accra.
Source: Ghana/starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM
