‘We do not need to arrest people at this point’ – PAC Vice Chair on COVID-19 fumigation audit report

Vice Chairperson of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, Davis Ansah Opoku, says there is no basis for arrests over the alleged omission of COVID-19 fumigation expenditure from the Auditor-General’s special audit at this stage.

The Mpraeso MP said the immediate priority should be for the Audit Service to explain why expenditure by the Ministries of Local Government and Transport was not captured in the report.

His comments follow investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni’s latest investigation into COVID-19 expenditure.

The investigation found that the Auditor-General’s special audit reported GH¢96.3 million as COVID-19 fumigation expenditure, while documents from the Ministries of Education, Local Government and Transport pointed to at least GH¢780 million spent on fumigation.

Mr Ansah Opoku said the GH¢96.3 million figure should not be automatically interpreted as the total COVID-19 fumigation expenditure.

“What I’m saying is that, from about 6:00 p.m. when we were called on JoyNews, the impression has been created that just GH¢96.3 million of the over GH¢700 million had been reported on COVID-19 expenditure, especially when it came to fumigation activities.”

“Now, it turns out that that isn’t the case. I mean, the GH¢96.3 million was for a specific Ghana Education Service activity, and it was captured in the report,” he said.

He acknowledged that the audit report did not provide extensive details on some areas of expenditure.

“And the report goes further to give further—and I can understand, there wasn’t much explanation on local government fumigation activities, I didn’t see much on transport, and all of that.”

However, he rejected calls for arrests based solely on the omissions identified so far.

“But this does not call for arrest, like just like what my senior Rockson sought to create that impression. I mean, we do not need to arrest people at this point.”

Mr Ansah Opoku said the Auditor-General is not required to report every item audited if no infraction is identified.

“It is not everything that the Auditor-General reports—audits that he reports on.”

“I think that point must be made clear. If there’s no infraction, do not expect the Auditor-General to report on that, and then maybe we may have to be dealing with several pages or several paragraphs of the Auditor-General’s report, even on institutions that are performing well and do not have any infraction.”

He said the Public Accounts Committee should first establish why the Local Government and Transport expenditure was omitted and determine the actual figures involved.

“And so, what we need to find out from the Auditor-General, and from the Audit Service, is why you omitted that of Local Government and that of Transport.”

“What are the figures? Present them to us, and we will audit.”

Also read:

• GH¢299m COVID fumigation spending was audited but left out of report – Manasseh Awuni

• People should be arrested – Dafeamekpor demands action over audit claims