Daniel Yao Domelevo
Pressure group, Alliance For Accountable Governance (AFAG), has called on the Attorney General to commence investigations into some alleged procurement breaches by the Auditor General, Daniel Domelevo, in the purchase of some Toyota vehicles for the Audit Service.
A statement
issued by the leadership of the group expressed surprise that the Attorney General
has not commenced criminal investigations into the purchase of the vehicles as
recommended by the Board of the Public Procurement Authority, as well as all
procurements made by the Audit Service between January and August 2018.
According to
AFAG, the PPA report found “flagrant breaches of the Public Procurement Act,
2003 (Act 663) as amended by the Public Procurement (Amendment) Act, 2016 (Act
914) committed by him.”
The group is,
therefore, calling on the Attorney General to, within one week, commence criminal
investigations into the procurement breaches of the Auditor General.
Vehicle Purchase
In 2018, the PPA conducted
investigation into the purchase of some 32 vehicles for the Audit Service,
which was reportedly done without recourse to the procurement regulations.
The
investigations also considered the procurement of goods and services by the
Audit Service between January and August, 2018.
The
investigations revealed that the purchase of the vehicles was not done in
accordance with the Public Procurement Act.
In September last
year, it emerged that the Audit Service used part of its 2017 budgetary
allocations, as well as funds from the United States Agency, for International
Development (USAID) to purchase a number of vehicles for the Service.
The information
indicated that the Service spent a whopping GH₵7.6 million in
purchasing a number vehicles for the Audit Service without going through the
right public procurement processes.
Although the
purchases of the vehicles went to the Procurement Authority, the expenses were
done well above the mandatory threshold of the Auditor-General, his deputy, as
well as the Entity Tender Committee (ETC) of the Audit Service in contravention
of the law.
Damage Control
The Service
claims it had received concurrent approval from the PPA to purchase the
vehicles as the amounts involved were above the approval limits of the Auditor General
and the Entity Tender Committee of the Audit Service.
A statement
issued by the Public Relations Unit of the Audit Service at the time had put
the number of vehicles purchased at 32, all the cost of GH₵6,870,511.65.
But documents
available clearly showed that the Entity Tender Committee of the Audit Service
spearheaded the approval of funds for the purchases.
Information had also
indicated that the Service purchased vehicles from a USAID fund, putting the
amount involved well above seven GH¢7 million.
PPA Investigations
The PPA
subsequently launched an investigation into the purchase of the vehicles and
other procurement made by the Service.
The PPA found
that there were ‘infractions’ in the methods used by the Audit Service in
purchasing the vehicles.
According to the
PPA report, there is no properly established Entity Tender Committee at the
Audit Service as the committee was not set up in accordance with Schedule 1B of
Act 663 which establishes the Service.
The PPA report
also held that all procurements approved by the Audit Service Entity Committee
are declared ‘null and void’ as the composition of the committee did not meet
the requirements.
Interestingly,
the PPA investigations also revealed that in respect of the vehicles purchased
by the Audit Service, the contract was awarded and the
vehicles were delivered before the Audit Service wrote to the Central Tender
Review Committee for concurrent approval contrary to Section 20 (4) of Act 663
as amended.
AFAG Demand
It has been almost nine months since the PPA Board referred the report to the Office of the Attorney General for action, but nothing appears to have been done about it and AFAG is calling on the PPA to make the report public while it also indicated that it would “would present a petition to the President concerning these breaches and failure of the Attorney General to faithfully execute her duties.”
BY Gibril Abdul Razak
