Foreign Ministry Exonerates Itself From ‘Chop, Chop’

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has blamed a former accounting officer at Ghana's Mission in Brussels for the financial lapses that occurred in that particular mission.

According to the Ministry, Edward Quansah, per the Auditor General's Report, “didn't actually follow some of the due procedures regarding accounting for public funds placed in his disposal.” This was made known yesterday at the Public Account Committee (PAC) meeting when Hannah Tetteh, Foreign Affairs Minister, was called to brief the PAC on the report of the Auditor General.

The 2014 Auditor-General's Report revealed that Ghana's Missions in Brussels, including Lusaka and Luanda misappropriated two million and eighty-one thousand, eight hundred and sixty three Ghana cedis (GH¢2,081,863). The report, however, did not mention the names of the persons who were culpable for the financial malfeasance at the Brussels and Ottawa missions, but was categorical in fingering Mr. Thomas A.

Amoako, Accounting Officer of the Lusaka mission and Mr. King Pratt Ainooson and Madam Mandy, as those who could not account for consular fees collected between April and November 2014 in Luanda. The report divulged that a total of US$160,640 and €29,332 were collected as revenue by the Lusaka Mission.

And in the case of the Luanda Mission, the Report's review of cash management of the Mission revealed that a total of €64,655, US$96,094 and CFA4,435,000 -all being consular fees collected for six months -between April and November –which could not be accounted for.

Also in the case of the Brussels' mission, a total of €58,746.62 was disbursed without authority, the report added, noting that the monies were disbursed  out of €143,090.10 retained internally generated fund (IGF) transferred into the Retention Fund Account.

In his response to the Auditor General's report before the PAC, Mr. Quansah, who was the accounting officer before the auditing was carried out admitted he erred. “I agree that I didn't follow the rules,” he said in an answer to a question from the Chairman of the PAC, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu.

That notwithstanding, Mr. Quansah explained that his actions were necessitated by the desire to ease the suffering of the staff of the Mission.  He further expatiated that it was a special arrangement in the Mission where officers collected IOUs just to make them “comfortable until their remittances” are paid with the aim of refunding the amounts into the consular account.

“This is what happened,” Mr. Quansah told the Kwaku Agyemang-Manu led committee. He said that an amount in the region of €59.000 was released as payment of the staff's salaries which did not go through the account. He said in the process of refunding the monies disbursed without approval in to the consular account –his personal money worth €16.000.00 from the sale of his car mistakenly followed too.

When this happened, he informed the auditors that visited about it and he was told that nothing could be done about it said Mr. Quansah. He, however, stated that, the auditors advised that he debit his money from the consular account for the month of August as he was leaving in September. “So what they advised verbally was that I should collect monies that were being paid into the consular account for the month of August as I will be leaving in September.

“It happened that the monies that was supposed to have gone into the retention account for that very month amounted to €8.000.00 and because I have paid more than€16.000.00 into the account–I took this€8000with the intention to leave,” he said. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hannah Tetteh, on her part told the PAC that she has directed all missions to ensure that all their accounts are balanced at all times.

“I have issued an instruction to the missions that for every mission where the accounts are not up to date, I gave them a period of three months which ends this month – that I will recall the accounting officer.” She said the constant rotation of staff at Ghana's missions abroad was a problem. “So the tool of the audit is there to enable us find out what has happened or gone wrong and to be able to correct it,” she said.

 By Mohammed Awal ([email protected])