The Auditor-General’s report has recommended to the Ghana Education Service to strengthen monitoring and supervision of activities of pre-tertiary institutions under its watch.
It has asked the Director-General to monitor activities of these institutions and impose severe sanctions on heads and accountants who persistently fail to adhere to public financial management requirements.
The recommendations were part of the report of the AG for the year ending December 31, 2020.
According to the report, even though seventy institutions fail to prepare and submit their annual financial statements for audit within the statutory period, their financial transactions and related activities were subjected to transactional audits and irregularities.
The irregularities included misappropriation of funds, unaccounted for payments, uncompetitive procurements, payment of unearned salaries to separated staff, unaccounted for stores, and statutory tax infractions.
These irregularities, the report said, resulted generally, from a lack of commitment on the part of the heads of the institutions to ensure compliance with established internal controls and regulations governing the management of financial resources.
Also, the report captured malfeasance and other irregularities in all the regions in the areas of cash management, procurement, and stores, payroll, contract management, assets management, rent payments, advances, and taxation.
According to the report, these irregularities accounted for about 97% of the total value of infractions discovered during the year under review.
Total cash irregularities of GHc 13,352,792.21for 2020 showed an increase of 99% over the previous year’s figure of Ghc 6,713,698.31.
Contract irregularities of Ghc 14,114,073.52 also showed a significant increase of 827% over the 2019 figure of 1,523,213.32.
Procurement and stores infraction of a marginal decrease of 2.3% over the 2019 figure of GHC 13,547,650.41, the report added.
Below is the link to the full report
https://ghaudit.org/web/wp-content/uploads/Reports/2020/AUDIT_PRE-UNI_PRESS.pdf
By: Rainbowradioonline.com
