Auditor General to review "abandoned projects"

The Auditor General, Daniel Yao Domelevo says a special audit will be conducted into contracts and projects that have been abandoned years after their completion.

According to him, the audit would consider the entire procurement chain of the projects that have been abandoned.

This follows complains by former president, John Dramani Mahama and a cross section of Ghanaians over the failure of successive governments to continue projects such as schools and hospitals which were started by their predecessors.

Mr Mahama during his tour of the Savannah Region expressed worry over what he described as government's failure to complete the Mpaha Community Day School in the Central Gonja District. 

According to him, he has observed that lot of projects that he started across the country and were due for completion had all been abandoned.

“During my rounds in touring the country and communities, I have often drawn attention to the criminal abandonment of projects. And this is one example, I mean almost all complete full secondary schools, community basic school, fire extinguishers have been installed, I mean ready to go. This I remember is one of the World Bank funded project that we got. They were 23 of them,” he said.

"If you go around the country, you will find them at different levels of completion, some have almost been completed and yet they remained unoccupied. I mean if you look at the children at that community and surrounding communities, they have to travel several kilometers to get a secondary education when a whole secondary school is just at their door stop," he added.

Responding to Mr Mahama's sentiment, the Auditor General, Mr Domelevo, says a special audit will be done to consider the entire procurement chain of the projects.

He said in an interview on Accra-based Joy FM that, “one of the areas that Ghanaians have not even sent their minds to which beats my mind and understanding, is the fact that people buy just for the sake of buying not because they need it. They can buy vehicle and pack it, they can build hospital and not use it, they can build a school and not use it. And I say what kind of country is this."

”This is not an offense which is to be looked at as a partisan issue. It is an offense against the nation and if it is your government or not your government you must speak against it otherwise, we are never going to progress as a people," he added.