The group OccupyGhana has stated that while it appreciates the steps taken by the Auditor General to recover sums owed to the State, there is apparent evidence that it has not issued a ‘disallowance and surcharge’ since 2018, in violation of the law.
OccupyGhana has charged that this is a gross violation of the Auditor General’s mandatory constitutional injunction to disallow and surcharge whenever it comes across an infraction.
“What also beggars belief, is your information to us that after you have issued your reports in which you state firmly that you have found infractions (and even give amounts lost because of them), you are now looking for evidence, which you already have or should have had before issuing your reports that disclose the infractions and the amounts lost to the state through them. We are therefore compelled to question the bases on which you announced those infractions and amounts lost, if you had no evidentiary basis, and so have to “collect evidence” on the same infractions, years after you have issued your reports,” OccupyGhana has stated.
The group has noted that this is an unacceptable mode of performing the constitutional duties that compelled the Supreme Court in OCCUPYGHANA v ATTORNEY-GENERAL to make disallowance and surcharge mandatory upon discovering any such infractions.
“You, sir, have chosen to delay the ‘disallowance and surcharge’ until after you have issued your report. The effect is that you have simply not done your work in the manner demanded by the Constitution and the Supreme Court,” OccupyGhana charged.
The above was contained in a response from OccupyGhana to the Auditor General dated 21 June 2022.
(Below is the full letter).
The Auditor-General
Office of the Auditor-General
Ministry Block ‘O’
P O Box M 96
Accra (GA-110-8787)
21 June 2022
Dear Sir,
Re: FINAL DEMAND TO ISSUE DISALLOWANCES AND SURCHARGES
We have received your letter dated 14 June 2022 (ref LD/04/22) on the above matter. This is the first response we have received since we started requesting information on whether or not you have complied with the constitutional demand that you disallow and surcharge whenever you discover infractions in the course of your work.
From your letter, we note that
(i) you have NOW set up a committee to work on your 2018–2020 reports,
(ii) the committee is NOW “collecting evidence from the various audit teams before proceeding with the notice of intention to disallow and/or surcharge and follow it up with disallowance and surcharge certificates where appropriate;”
(iii) the committee has concluded work on only ONE audit between 2014 and 2019, on which you have issued a disallowance and surcharge certificate, and forwarded to the Attorney-General for further action after the lapse of the 60-day statutory period for appeals;
(iv) you have NOW set up a recoveries task force to follow up on reported infractions and ascertain how much has been recovered.
While we appreciate the steps that you have reported, what your letter does not expressly admit, but which is apparent, is that YOU HAVE NOT ISSUED ANY DISALLOWANCES AND SURCHARGES SINCE 2018. That, as you know, is a gross violation of your mandatory constitutional injunction to disallow and surcharge whenever you come across an infraction.
What also beggars belief, is your information to us that after you have issued your reports in which you state firmly that you have found infractions (and even give amounts lost because of them), you are now looking for evidence, which you already have or should have had before issuing your reports that disclose the infractions and the amounts lost to the state through them. We are therefore compelled to question the bases on which you announced those infractions and amounts lost, if you had no evidentiary basis, and so have to “collect evidence” on the same infractions, years after you have issued your reports.
It is this unacceptable mode of performing your constitutional duties that compelled the Supreme Court in OCCUPYGHANA v ATTORNEY-GENERAL to make your disallowance and surcharge mandatory upon discovering any such infractions. You, sir, have chosen to delay the disallowance and surcharge until after you have issued your report. The effect is that you have simply not done your work in the manner demanded by the Constitution and the Supreme Court.
What is worse, you are now going to issue intentions to disallow and surcharge, after your reports have already put the persons allegedly involved in the infractions on notice, followed by years of inaction while your committee now gathers evidence that you already have and which must have informed your reports. What you have succeeded in doing is affording people the opportunity to cover their tracks and cause even the initial evidence to disappear. You have to explain to Ghanaians what would happen if after reporting infractions, your committee does not find the evidence that allegedly formed the basis of your conclusions on infractions in your reports.
We regret this state of affairs, which explains why you ignored our letters of 9 September 2021 and 3 February 2022. And it explains why your letter does not tell us when you allegedly set up the committee and task force.
Against this background, we are compelled to focus on your admitted SINGLE exercise of your power. Kindly provide us with the following information:
- Full details of that disallowance and surcharge certificate (including a copy of it),
- Evidence of service of the certificate on the person surcharged,
- The date on which you transmitted the certificate to the Attorney-General, and
- Any evidence of steps taken by the Attorney-General on the matter.
We are sending a copy of this letter to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, and hereby requesting that that office should:
- Confirm receipt of the said certificate, and
- Provide evidence of steps taken to enforce the demands in the certificate.
Yours in the service of God and Country,
OccupyGhana
- The Executive Secretary
Right to Information Commission
Accra
The Attorney-General & Minister of Justice
Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice
Accra
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