By
Christopher Arko
Accra, July 18, GNA – Mr Daniel Yaw Domelevo,
the Auditor General, has announced plans to conduct a construction audit on
projects being implemented by government.
The goal was to make sure that there was value
for money for all the projects.
He made this known when the Special Budget
Committee of Parliament paid a working visit to the Audit Service in Accra.
The members were there to interact with
officials of the Service and to find out whether monies approved by parliament
had been used for the intended purposes.
Mr Domelevo spoke of steps towards procurement
and payroll audit to enhance transparency in government procurement and to
fight payroll fraud.
It had already started auditing the books of
the University of Ghana and he said the other public universities would follow
soon.
He praised the committee for helping to get
the Ministry of Finance to release 50 percent of their budget upfront.
This enabled the Service to submit four of its
audited reports to the Parliament this year, something which had never happened
before.
He said although the quantum of the release
was quite satisfactory, it should have come much earlier because the timeliness
of the audit reports was relevant to the fight against wastage, abuse of public
funds and leakages in the system.
“If we want fiscal space to develop the
country we either increase revenue or reduce cost and where there are costs
which are illegitimate we must go after them” he added.
Mr Haruna Iddrisu, the Minority Leader, called
for strong backing for the Auditor General to help him to carry out his mandate
under the Constitution.
He assured him of parliament’s support in the
effort to combat corruption, reduce malfeasance, embezzlement, misappropriation
and related issues that affected the public purse.
He applauded Mr. Domelevo for bold and
courageous initiatives introduced -construction audit, procurement audit and
payroll audit.
He urged him to pay particular to the health
and education sectors where there were likely to be breaches of the law in
terms of payroll fraud.
GNA