Fraud Office saves Ghana 5.7 billion cedis

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) have saved the state from losing 5.7 billion cedis through its operations during the year 2000.

The amount involved those actually retrieved from stealing, misappropriation and embezzlement and putting a stop to those that would have been lost if the office had not intervened.

This is contained in the 2000 Annual Report the SFO presented to Parliament and which the Speaker Mr. Peter Ala Adjetey referred to the Committee on Legal, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs for study and report to the House.

According to the report, the office handled 89 cases during the year under review as against 64 in the previous year (1999).

It said only one out of 26 cases it sent to court from 1998 to date has been dealt with and the rest (25) were still outstanding and it thus reiterated its appeal to the Chief Justice to designate courts dedicated to economic and commercial crimes.

"The SFO believes that economic criminals must be hit hard at where it hurts most, that is, in the area of confiscation of their assets by the courts anytime a suspect is convicted".

It called on the government and Parliament to pass into law a Compulsory Reporting Legislation, which would makes it obligatory and mandatory for any financial or economic crimes committed in any organisation involving amounts above certain ceiling to be reported to either the SFO, the Police or any designated law enforcement agency for action.

"This will help additionally in building up crime statistics in Ghana and set the stage for putting in place preventive measures to forestall future occurrences of such white-collar crimes.

"Too many economic and financial crimes are being perpetrated in establishments involving millions and sometimes billions of cedis. These are in many cases treated or handled as internal matters by management of the establishments concerned and the culprits are either ordered to pay on the quiet or sometimes only dismissed and asked to leave with the booty".

The report, said the main drawback on the activities of the SFO continue to be lack of funds, logistics and adequate personnel with requisite skills, adding "when it is properly resourced it can play a significant role in stopping the leakages in the system and help in the creation of an enabling economic environment to enhance economic growth".

On its monitoring operations, the SFO said it has zoned the country into five and that during the year it saved many district assemblies, rural banks, contracts and departments from embezzlements and stealing of state funds.

It said 34 activities were surveyed in the Northern Zone which included the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions where 47,119,000 cedis were recovered, 88 ghost names were eliminated leading to a savings of about 47,500,000 cedis.

It saved the Regional Health Administration in Tamale 38 million cedis, which would have been embezzled by some of the staff of the administration.

The report said in the Western Zone comprising Central and Western regions the SFO monitored 17 district assemblies, the operations of the Controller and the Accountant General's Department, and a rural bank.

The other areas covered were land/crop compensation claims, claims within Ghana Education Service, the National Poverty Reduction Programme Fund, the District Assembly Common Fund, payroll audit and award of public contracts.

It said from the operations, 154 million cedis was retrieved. In the Greater Accra Zone SFO retrieved 118 million cedis in operations including Ports and Harbours, clearing of goods/custom duties, medical supplies for Ministry of Health and public contracts.

The report said more than 42 million cedis was recovered in the Central Zone, which included Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions on operations of salary claims, MPs share of the district assembly common fund, public projects and the Value Added Tax.

In the Eastern Zone which comprise the Volta and Eastern regions, 145 million cedis was recovered on the use of public funds, Danida/European sponsored projects and claims within government departments and agencies.