Golden Age of Corruption…

- Government Smuggling in Contracts Without Verification from Auditor-General - Violates the Financial Administration Act, 2003

On January 7 2001 when President John Kufuor was sworn into office, he promised to nib corruption in the bud and consequently declared a "zero tolerance" for corruption in his administration. The avowed declaration of zero tolerance for corruption was anchored by a golden age of business mantra but little did we know however that the golden age of business is but of corruption galore as the Kufuor government is smuggling in contracts without any verification and endorsement of receipt of records on such contracts by the Auditor-General or his department.

Mr. Eric Lamptey, Deputy Auditor General in charge of Education, District Assembly, Planning and Monitoring, has claimed that they (the Auditor General Department) are aware of several contracts being undertaken by foreign as well as local contractors of which no records of such contracts have been lodged with the department in violation of the Audit Service Act, 2000(Act 584) and the Financial Administration Act, 2003(Act 645) For the purposes of preventing corruption, the Auditor-General has the responsibility of auditing all public accounts annually and reporting on them to Parliament and Article 11, Subsection (2) of the Audit Service Act, 2000(Act 584) says "For the purposes of subsection (1), the Auditor-General or any person authorized or appointed for the purpose by the Auditor-General shall have access to all books, records, returns and other documents including documents in computerized and electronic form relating to or relevant to those accounts.

Additionally, the Financial Administration Act2003 (Act 654) on responsibility of accounting offices states in Article 60 that "The responsibility of the Auditor-General to examine and certify public accounts or to audit other government accounts does not relieve an officer responsible for keeping or rendering accounts, from the duty to comply with and to ensure the compliance of subordinate staff with the provisions of this or any other enactment or with any Regulations or directions issued.

According to Mr. Lamptey, most of the contracts awarded by the government have been completed or nearing completion and have not had any records of them lodged with the department saying they only bring the contracts for them to sign and nothing more insisting it is in clear violation or contravention of the law.

He said the government only brings them the contract for them to sign and that is all He however acquiesced to specify the contracts in question but stated that at least they were aware several of those insisting that refusal to tender in such records are rendering Review and Performance auditing of such contracted projects difficult.

What is alarming is that most of the shoddy works carried or being carried out according to some engineers this reporter spoke to are being undertaken by card-bearing individuals in the New Patriotic Party both in government and in the mainstream of the party who lack the necessary expertise and use substandard materials in order to cut down cost and rake in immense profit. There have been persistent complaints of rains washing away roads, tarred recently and of drains developing serious cracks.