Vice Chairperson of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), 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 clearly captured in the report.
His comments follow an investigation by investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni, which raised questions about the Auditor-General’s reporting of COVID-19 fumigation expenditure. The investigation found that the special audit reported GH¢96.3 million as the cost of fumigation, while documents from the Ministries of Education, Local Government and Transport indicated that at least GH¢780 million was spent on the exercise.
Mr Ansah Opoku, however, said the GH¢96.3 million figure should not automatically be interpreted as the total amount spent on COVID-19 fumigation.
He explained that the figure related specifically to a Ghana Education Service activity captured in the Auditor-General’s report.
He acknowledged that the audit report did not provide sufficient detail on some of the expenditure identified by the investigation, particularly spending by the Ministries of Local Government and Transport.
“There wasn’t much explanation on local government fumigation activities. I didn’t see much on transport, and all of that,” he said.
Despite the omissions, Mr Ansah Opoku rejected calls for arrests, arguing that further clarification was needed before any such action could be considered.
“But this does not call for arrest. We do not need to arrest people at this point,” he said.
He also argued that the Auditor-General does not necessarily report every item examined during an audit, particularly where no irregularity is identified.
“It is not everything that the Auditor-General reports—audits that he reports on,” he said, adding that the absence of an item from the final report does not automatically mean that it was not audited.
Mr Ansah Opoku said the Public Accounts Committee should first establish why the Local Government and Transport expenditure was not reflected in the report and determine the actual amounts involved.
“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,” he said.
The Ghana Audit Service has previously indicated that the absence of the Local Government Ministry’s fumigation expenditure from the special audit’s reported figure does not mean the expenditure was not audited.
The investigation also found that the Ministry of Education’s fumigation expenditure was reported incompletely, while spending by the Local Government and Transport ministries was not reflected in the reported GH¢96.3 million figure.
