MPs call for forensic audit into understated COVID-19 expenditure

Majority Chief Whip of Ghana’s Parliament and South Dayi MP, Rockson Nelson Dafeamekpor, is calling for a forensic audit of Ghana’s COVID-19 expenditure.

Backing this call is the MP for Mpraeso and Vice-Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Opoku Ansah Davis.

The two MPs made the call together with a past chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, James Klutse Advedzi.

Mr Dafeamekpor says this will provide an opportunity to properly examine every expenditure previously ignored in the Auditor-General's special audit report, which has now come under scrutiny.

 “...if they were not covered, then now we have to call for a forensic audit. So the forensic audit will reopen those that were not properly audited and look at those expenditure lines that were not audited at all,”  he told Accra-based radio station Joy FM.

Mr Dafeamekpor’s call comes after a years-long investigation by Manasseh Azure Awuni revealed that the audit service captured only 12 per cent of the GHS 780 million spent by three ministries on fumigation during the COVID-19 period.

The Auditor-General’s special audit report was to cover all government ministries and agencies that spent public funds on COVID-19. The audit was to “ascertain whether the financial records fairly present the COVID-19 fund receipts and payments.”

It was also supposed to cover “all funds mobilised and provide a seperate report on COVID-19-related expenditures of various MDAs covering the period 2020 to 2021 financial years.”

 The investigation specifically found that the Ministry of Local Government spent about GH¢299 million on three fumigation contracts, but that expenditure was not included in the Auditor-General’s reported fumigation figure.

Further, it revealed that between June 2020 and March 2021, the Ministry of Education undertook three phases of fumigation towards the reopening of schools.

And while the ministry spent GHS 316.1 million on the exercises,  the Auditor-General listed GH¢96,323,102.05 as the “cost of fumigation”, which represents only the second phase of the Ministry of Education’s fumigation exercise.

Another Ministry whose fumigation spending the Auditor-General failed to include in its special audit was the Ministry of Transport, which paid Zoomlion a total of GHS159.9 million for fumigations in 2020, 2021, and 2022.

When Manasseh asked why the Ghana Audit Service did not present the total expenditure of all ministries in this special audit service, the Audit Service responded that the expenditure was audited but failed to explain why it was omitted from the figure reported. It said, “the absence of the Ministry of Local Government's expenditure on fumigation and disinfection in the Auditor-General's Report in question does not mean the expenditure was not audited.”

According to Mr Dafeamekpor, the evidence presented indicates the audit was conducted, but that some material findings and recommendations were omitted from the report submitted to Parliament.

“So where the evidence, the pieces of material evidence that he’s pieced together, points irresistibly to the fact that they actually conducted the audit of the Ministry of Local Government and Transport, but in reporting to Parliament, concealed material findings and perhaps recommendations for consideration by Parliament and perhaps leading to legislative reforms from Parliament, they’re in breach of Section 16,” he said.

Meanwhile, former Auditor-General, Daniel Domelevo, has said the discrepancy must be explained, stating that either information was withheld from auditors or the audit was not properly conducted.  

“If the ministry refused to give the information, then that is a serious offence. If it is also that the audit was not done well, then that is also a serious professional misconduct. Any of them would be a serious offence,” he said.

The former Auditor-General further said that the circumstances surrounding the audit must therefore be clarified to determine whether information was withheld or the expenditure was improperly reported.