The Northern Regional Audit Service have debunked a media reportage by an Accra-based radio station Joy Fm concerning the 2015 auditor general’s report on prosecuting the chief executive officer and some senior staff of the Tamale Teaching Hospital.

Speaking to Zaa news on the condition of strict anonymity, a senior staff member at the Northern Regional Audit Service described the reportage as false, malicious and mischievous.

The officer explained that when an observation is made during the auditing of an institution, the observations are sent to the institution for its verification, when the audit service is not satisfied with the verification or response from the institution, it sends the report back giving the client for that matter the institution further duration to verify the observations made by the audit service.

The regional audit service official explained that they are astonished as to where Joy Fm got that information from because he was part of the team that audited the Tamale Teaching Hospital and no such recommendation was done."

As far as I am concerned, I did not make any recommendation of that nature, the Tamale Teaching Hospital is not in my 2015 report, so the report is mischievous and I think someone want to embarrass me but Insha Allah, that will never happen,’’ he added.

He concluded that, even when the regional audit service is not satisfied with the response by the institution after forwarding it to Accra, the auditor general also gives the institution another opportunity to respond before it goes to parliament, but when the issues are resolved, they are not captured in the final auditor general’s report.

In a related development, the Tamale Teaching Hospital has issued a press statement, also describing the report as untrue and fictional. It stated that their attention has been drawn to a Joy FM report indicating that the 2015 Auditor- General’s report recommends the prosecution of the Chief Executive Officer and some senior officers of the Tamale Teaching Hospital for acting in ways that amount to corruption.

The statement signed by the Director of Medical Affairs Dr. Abass Adam and the Acting Public Relations Officer Mr. Misbao Mohammed stated that the report is not only baseless, and untrue but very malicious and concocted to tarnish the hard-won reputation of the hospital and its management.

"The Tamale Teaching Hospital is a public health facility and as such complies with the provisions of the public procurement Act” the statement added.

Again, they explained that there was no such report as Auditor General’s report for 2015. Besides, the document that is purported to be the 2015 Auditor- General’s report is a preliminary observation by the Regional Audit team and as protocol demands the hospital will have to respond to them.

The statement explained that it is surprising that a media house like Joy FM did not discuss the issue with any management member before airing the story. They concluded that it is their conviction that the statement will set the records straight and also urged the general public to disregard the reports and has assured them that, the Tamale Teaching Hospital will always work in their interest to ensure continuity of service.