Crack The Whip On Defaulters - PAC(1st September 2011 05:55:56 by Benjamin Xornam Glover)

The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament hearing audited reports on metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions have urged audit report implementation committees in the various districts to sanction all public officers who continue to misapply funds.

According to the committee, failure to do so will mean harming the public purse and bleeding the coffers of the state. The Chairman of the committee, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, expressed worries about the trend of misconduct on the part of officers of the assemblies and their failure to apply the rules to the letter.

“When government gives you money, it also gives you guidelines on how to spend it, it is therefore very important to be abreast of the rules and regulations to avoid such corrupt practices,” he said.

“As members of the audit implementation committee, when you fail to apply sanctions, you become liable to sanctions,” he warned.

Most of the report heard by the committee bordered on failures to recoup monies disbursed under the Poverty Alleviation Fund and lack of commitment by those currently in office to trace the addresses of those who benefited from such programmes to recover those monies.

“What is more worrying is that last year in Tamale during our hearings, the same observations were made and officers were tasked to work on it but here we are with the same story been repeated. It appears, assemblies are not taking audit reports seriously,” he added.

During the hearing, representatives of the Yendi Municipal Assembly for instance told the committee that persons who benefited from loans disbursed under the Poverty Alleviation Fund mistook it for gifts and therefore failed to repay the money owed the state.

They told the committee that although they had records of those who benefited; the assembly was finding it difficult to trace the addresses of those on the list, a response that did not go down well with members of the committee.

The committee members lashed the Yendi Municipal Assembly for failing to show enough commitment to protect government funds. They directed the assemblies to make use of the state agencies such as the Police and the CID to identify those who have defaulted and prosecute them.

In the case of Sisala East District, out of GH¢31,050 unrecovered loans only GH¢2, 700 had been paid and the chairman of the committee asked the district chief executive, Madam Alijata Sulemana, to extend her recent heroic act of solely arresting a vehicle carrying 700 bags of subsidised government fertiliser beingsmuggled into the Republic of Burkina Faso by a notorious smuggler in the district to recover unpaid loans from beneficiaries.

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