PAC WONT ACCEPT EXCUSES — MANU (PAGE 12, SEPT 3, 2010)

THE Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (PAC) will not accept excuses from officials of the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies that they were not at post between 2001 and 2004 when queries are raised against audit reports for that period.
The Acting Chairman of PAC, Mr Kwaku Agyemang Manu, explained that queries were raised against reports of the assemblies as an institution and not the individual officers of the assemblies.
“You answer queries that have been raised against the assemblies, not individuals,” he explained.
He was speaking at the opening session of a public sitting of the PAC to hear audit reports covering 2001 to 2004 from metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) in the Western and Central Regions as well as the Western and Central Regional Co-ordinating Councils in Takoradi.
The forum was attended by metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives and their co-ordinating directors, district finance officers, internal auditors, presiding members as well as some members of the assemblies.
He noted that if the metropolitan, municipal and district audit report implementation committees (ARIC) were working effectively, there would not be any excuse.
He reminded the assemblies that there was a directive from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to the effect that all metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies should set up audit report implementation committees to implement audit reports of the assemblies.
Mr Agyemang Manu said the PAC, just as other committees in Parliament, worked as non-partisan, adding “That is the spirit of working to develop the country“.
“We are working in accordance with the financial administration of the country to deepen the financial management of the country and to have value for money,” he said.
The Deputy Western Regional Minister, Ms Betty Busumtwi-Sam, noted that most MMDAs had not been diligent in the management of funds allocated to them and that millions of cedis had been lost through improper financial management.
She said the PAC sitting in the region to hear audit reports from the assemblies should serve as a wake-up call to all those who managed public funds to ensure that they were accounted for properly.
The Central Regional Minister, Mrs Ama Benyiwa Doe, said spending money and accounting for such money was a constitutional requirement.
She said along side the constitutional requirement, the audit report implementation committees was another structure to ensure proper accountability but many MMDAs did not have them in place.
She urged the Regional Co-ordinating Councils to ensure that queries raised against the MMDAs were corrected and that they were not repeated.