PAC to surcharge Krachi East District Assembly
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has indicated its intention to surcharge management staff of the Krachi East District in the Volta Region with outstanding debts owed the assembly between 2011 and 2013.
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The debts resulted from various undocumented expenditures the assembly made, as well as unpaid revenue collected on its behalf by revenue collectors within the same period.
The committee said the misappropriations of the assembly’s share of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) and internally-generated funds (IGF) on unproductive expenditures such as funerals, workshops, night allowances and refreshments were unacceptable.
The PAC served the notice when the Chief Executive for Krachi East, Mr Peter Yaw Awuranyi; the District Co-ordinating Director (DCD), Mr Joseph Bedrah; the District Finance Officer (DFO), Mr Sylvester Zigum, and a former DCD, Mr Gado Musah, appeared before it last Wednesday.
They were queried on why they had failed to implement the recommendations of the Auditor-General in his 2010 audit report that required the assembly to recoup some outstanding debts owed it between 2010 and 2013.
The committee also probed the assembly’s management as to why they had consistently failed to account for various undocumented expenditures and revenue collected on its behalf by revenue collectors within the same period.
Meanwhile, the PAC has tasked the management of the assembly to liaise with former staff to recoup the funds, where applicable and pay them into the assembly’s chest. The PAC has also required the management to make the receipts covering the expenditures available to the Auditor-General.
“We have given a notice of surcharging management staff of the assembly but we want to wait for the Auditor-General to come up with a follow-up report before we actually invoke the surcharge intention,” the Chairman of the PAC, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, stated.
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The report
According to the December 2010 audit report, the Krachi East District Assembly had misapplied funds meant for development on funerals, workshops, repair and maintenance of vehicles, fuel and drinks for the district chief executive’s residence.
For instance the report revealed that the assembly in 2011 made a payment of GH¢50,634 for fuel purchases, servicing of vehicles, workshop fees, cost of tyres, among others payments, but failed to support them with relevant expenditure documents.
Again, in 2011 the assembly misapplied GH¢25,228 on May Day celebrations, meetings and night allowances which were financed from the DACF.
Drivers are illiterate
Responding, Mr Zigum, the DFO, told the committee that drivers employed by the assembly were illiterates who did not know how to use the fuel log book to record purchased fuel.
That explanation was not taken kindly by the members of the committee, who felt the answer of the DFO was “disrespectful”.
Incensed, some members asked the DCE if, on his way to Accra to appear before the committee, he ensured that his driver utilised the log book and the DCE answered in the affirmative.
He was subsequently compelled to ask his driver to produce the log book to the committee for the members to establish the truth or otherwise of his assertion. His driver, after a while, produced the log book.