'Public Funds In Danger'

Mr. Kan Dapaah (sitting 2^nd left) with some speakers and participants

Albert Kan Dapaah, Executive Director, FAT Africa, says the country's public funds have been left at the mercy of public officials, a development which would negate all efforts to build the economy.

According to him, public officials are very corrupt and therefore cannot protect and provide proper accountability on public funds as required by the Constitution.

Mr. Kan Dapaah, who made this known at the 6^th Annual Accountability Lecture of the Ghana Audit Service in Accra yesterday, said the protection and accountability of public funds depended on the country’s Public Financial Management System (PFMS) and the institutions charged by the Constitution to act as the accountability institutions.

'In Ghana, we have opted for the Westminister model of PFMS which revolves around the annual budget and specifically four phases of the budget process, namely the preparation phase, approval phase, implementation phase and the audit assurance phase.

'In all these phases are crucial checks and balances or accountability mechanisms. If these checks and balances or accountability mechanisms are respected and upheld, corruption is difficult and public funds are effectively protected,' he noted.

Mr. Kan Dapaah said virtually all the checks and balances at the various phases of the PFMS are not allowed to operate and deliberately so.

'The result is that public funds are left unprotected and at the mercy of corrupt public officials,' he observed.

Mr. Kan Dapaah said, 'The tragedy is that the Executive refuses to align the budget to a Medium Term Development Agenda. Rather, budgets are aligned to party manifestoes prepared with the basic objective of winning votes and not to grow the economy.

'Equally tragic is that the Ministries, Departments and Agencies do not take the preparation of the budgets seriously.'

He said all the safety nets in the country’s Public Financial Management System have deep holes and are totally unable to hold together the crucial checks and balances to protect the public funds.

Institutions Faring Poorly
Mr. Kan Dapaah said the institutions (Auditor General, Parliament and the Judiciary) mandated constitutionally to hold government accountable had all fared poorly, stating, 'The institutions can hardly be said to be independent of the president and his government.'

He said the Constitution of Ghana has entrusted too much power to the president and has neutralized the role of these institutions.

'New laws emanate only from the presidency and eventually get approved by majority party members usually from the ruling party. This is inconsistent with the checks and balances required by democracy.

'As it is now, the president controls our parliament-period. And the result is that the key accountability institution is impotent,' Mr. Kan Dapaah said.

In addressing the problem of protecting and accounting for the public funds, he said 'Let us re-institute the checks and balances in our PFMS and let us free the accountability institutions from the present state of inaction.'

The 6^th Ghana Audit Service Annual Accountability Lecture is organized to sensitize its stakeholders and the general public on the role of the Auditor-General in the management of the public financial system of Ghana.

BY Cephas Larbi
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