PAC Chairman educates AG

James Klutse Avedzi, MP for Ketu North and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee has provided some education to Ghana’s Attorney General Godfred Dame after the AG accused the Auditor General of illegally publishing the results of a special audit on the government’s Covid-19 expenditure. In an interview on Citi FM monitored by Soireenews.com, Mr. Avedzi said the Auditor breached no law contrary to the claims of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Dame, quoting relevant laws to back his counterclaim. Godfred Dame had said the Auditor General breached the constitution by publishing his report on Covid Audit to the public domain before submitting it to parliament. In a letter to the Auditor-General, Mr. Johnson Akuamoah-Asiedu, Godfred Dame wrote that Article 187(5) of the Constitution mandates the Auditor-General to submit his report to Parliament and in that report, draw attention to any irregularities in the accounts audited. Parliament must then debate the report of the Auditor-General and appoint, where necessary and in the public interest, a committee to deal with any matters arising from it before it goes public. But the Ketu North lawmaker strongly disagreed. He said Article 187(5) of the 1992 Constitution mandates the Auditor General to submit the government’s audited reports not less than six months after the end of the year to parliament which the “Auditor has done and fulfilled”. Avedzi told the Attorney General to take measures to amend Section 23 of the Audit Service Act if he wants to introduce something new. “He [the Auditor General] just went in compliance with the law. The constitution said he should submit the report to Parliament, and he did that. The constitution also said he should publish the report, and he has done that” he said. “What he (Godfred Dame) should look out for is the lacuna. Section 23 of the Audit Service Act should be amended so that after the Auditor General has submitted the report to Parliament, he should wait until the Public Accounts Committee debates the report before it can be published, but as it stands now, the Auditor General can publish without waiting for a debate on the report by PAC.”