Pressure group, OccupyGhana, a pressure group, has asked President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to revoke the decision to have KPMG audit the contract between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML).
It has also urged him to rather allow the Auditor-General to conduct the audit and which is line with Article 187 of the constitution.
The pressure group argued that Article 187(8) specifically provided that when such matters arose, the Council of State should advise the President that an “Article 187(8) Public Interest Audit” was required.
“Indeed, and in practice, the President may seek and then obtain that advice. Then, the President would request the Auditor-General to conduct the audit.
“This provision in Article 187 is so critical and significant that the Constitution specifically sets it down as the only instance where a President has the power to request the independent Auditor-General to do anything.”
It has further urged the Council of State to send its advice to the President on the matter.
According to the statement, if the Council of State and/or the President failed, neglected, or refused to comply with Article 187, the Auditor-General should commence and conduct a special audit on his own under Section 16 of the Audit Service Act.
It went on to indicate that the President’s choice of a private audit firm to conduct the audit could be unconstitutional.
To the group, it could be unconstitutional because it ignored direct constitutional provisions made and meant to address such situations.
“The several advantages of complying with the constitutional provision include, critically, giving the Auditor-General the opportunity under Article 187(7)(b) to disallow payments found to be contrary to the law and then to surcharge (1) “any expenditure disallowed upon the person responsible for incurring or authorizing the expenditure” and/or (2) “the amount of any loss or deficiency, upon any person by whose negligence or misconduct the loss or deficiency has been incurred.”
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
