The Office of the Administrator General (OAG) is woefully under resourced, the Administrator General, David Yaro has disclosed stating that “I feel impotent being in such an office.”
According to him, he harbored the thought of leaving, but decided to stay and fight to get the right things done.
Section 9.1 of the Presidential Transition Act requires the Administrator General to prepare a natural register covering all national lands and any other land vested in the president by the Constitution.
“Since 2012, my office was given two used vehicles…old ones which we are using to go round anytime the minister indicates that he wants to checkout…I let the vehicles take a team there to take inventory and other things,” he told Nii Arday Clegg on Morning Starr on Thursday.
“Before then we were sitting down—we knew that we should go here and take inventory [but] we couldn’t move. We couldn’t do anything. It was a one man office [run] by the first Administrator General who incidentally died and so we had to resort to the head of civil service to get four officers…to help in the routine running of the office—budget officer, planning officer, PRO,” he added.
He said the office from all indications is pathetically under-resourced and understaffed noting that “what I think I’m enjoying is the big name—the Administrator General that is all; otherwise in effect I’m not as effective as I should be as Administrator General. I’m impotent and I have no powers to do anything.”
Mr. Yaro was speaking in the aftermath of claims from the presidency that over 200 cars from the state pool at the Flagstaff House are missing.
The Communications Director at the presidency, Eugene Arhin, alleged that over 200 official vehicles are missing.
As a result, the President, Akufo-Addo is still using his private Land Cruiser a month after being sworn into office, he added.
Mr. Yaro said he was surprised “these things are happening” after suggesting during the transition period that correct figures on assets should be given.
In order to curb similar situation from happening in the future, he said the laws establishing the Office of the Administrator General must be reviewed so that those who unlawfully take State assets can be sanctioned by it.
Vincent Kwagbenu, the man responsible for coordinating the re-registration of government vehicles under the previous Mahama administration rubbished the claim by the government, describing it as “strange.”
He said on Morning Starr on Thursday that the claim is incomprehensible stressing, “I do not think a number of cars can get missing as alleged by [Eugene Arhin].”
