Three regions embezzle GH₵21 Million, Public Accounts Committee discovers

Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the three northern regions have incurred the displeasure of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee after misappropriating GH₵21 million from the District Assemblies Common Fund.

Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee says MMDAs in the three northern regions mostly side-stepped laid down financial Management laws in their application of the Common fund. 

The Public Accounts Committee has taken its hearing to the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions as it looks into the books of MMDAs there.

In all, 12 Municipal and District assemblies from the Upper West and East Regions appeared before the committee’s first sitting. They included Wa Municipal, Wa East and West , Sissala East and West, Lawra and Jirapa assemblies among others.

It surfaced from the Auditor Generals Department query from 2010 to 2012, that the Wa Municipal Assembly spent over GH₵19, 000 on two retired staff without supporting documents or receipts to validate the amount spent.

Members of the PAC were unimpressed with officials of the assembly who appeared before it on the first day.

Acting Chairman of the committee, Robert Sarfo Mensah and MP for Salaga South, Ibrahim Dey Abubakari, were among many on the committee who expressed disappointment in the MMDAs for consistently disregarding laid down financial management laws such as Public Procurement law.

The Committee called for the prosecution of officials whose actions have caused financial loss to the state at various levels.