Managers who supervise shoddy works will be penalised — Auditor General

Project managers whose poor supervision lead to shoddy works will be surcharged for any resultant financial loss to the state, the Auditor General, Mr Daniel Domelevo, has stated.

He said if officials employed by the state to manage infrastructural projects were found to have failed in their duties, they should be made to pay for their negligence.

According to him, the Audit Service had employed special audit staff, such as quantity surveyors, engineers, architects and environmental scientists, who review infrastructural projects to determine whether they met specifications or not.

Mr Domelevo was speaking on how to revitalise investments in infrastructure in the country at a stakeholders’ workshop in Accra last Tuesday.
It was organised by the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC).

Project management

A project manager has the responsibility of planning, procuring and executing a project in any undertaking that has a defined scope, start and finish, regardless of the industry.

Essentially, a project manager is accountable for the success or failure of a project.

Project managers are employed for all major infrastructural projects in the country and they have the duty to ensure value for money by seeing to it that projects are executed according to specifications.

Article 187 ( 7) (b) of the 1992 Constitution states: “The Auditor-General may disallow any item of expenditure which is contrary to law and surcharge the amount of any loss or deficiency upon any person by whose negligence or misconduct the loss or deficiency has been incurred."

Observations

Mr Domelevo said engineers, architects and quantity surveyors who inspected both completed and uncompleted road projects took "cylinder samples" of the roads for testing.

"The interesting part is that usually when the width is measured, it does not add up.

This is daylight robbery," he said, noting that it was unfortunate those poorly executed projects were supervised and approved by consultants and project managers.

"We must start enforcing the rules.

There must be consequences for the abuse of public funds and non-performance, otherwise this nation will not move forward.

We cannot continue to go the way we have gone over the years," he added.

Another issue of concern, according to him,was the money set aside to cover unexpected costs during construction processes.

He observed that in most cases, such money, usually referred to as contingency, was excessively high, not needed and not utilised but never returned to government chest.

In his view, such contingencies were added to budgets to steal from the state.

He further noted that infrastructural projects were executed without taking into consideration the needs of beneficiaries.

"Is it not prudent that when we are going to use public funds to construct something we consult the people and ask them exactly what their needs are, instead of putting up projects which end up not being used?" Mr Domelevo asked.

Single sourcing

The Auditor General also expressed concern over single sourcing, which he said had become rampant.

He said a procurement audit was currently being conducted, after which the recommendations would be sent to Parliament for perusal and directions on the way forward.