Speaker Charges PAC To Come Out With Modalities

The Speaker of Parliament, Mrs Joyce Bamford Addo, has charged the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to come out with modalities on how a committee would be set up to ensure that its recommendations were enforced.

The Speaker gave the directive when the committee presented its report on the Auditor-General’s report on the accounts of public pre-university educational institutions for the year ended December 31, 2005 to the House.

Presenting the report, the chairman of the committee, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, lamented the non-implementation of the recommendations of the committee.

He said the situation whereby public officials who flouted the financial regulations without any sanctions had ensured that such anomalies and crimes were not repeated in subsequent years.

In the report it was observed that as many as 190 heads out of the 552 pre-tertiary institutions in the country did not submit their annual accounts as required by the law.

That according to the report made it impossible for the Auditor-General to report on the financial standing and the effectiveness of financial controls in the defaulting institutions.

The committee, therefore recommended to the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to impose sanctions on the accountants and heads of institutions in accordance with the provisions of the Financial and Accounting instructions for secondary schools, training colleges and educational units.

It also recommended to the GES to ensure that heads of pre-tertiary institutions were given some basic training in financial management.

In addition measures should be put in place to augment the staff strength of the Accounts Departments of pre-university institutions to enhance internal controls.

Contributing to the ensuing debate, the NDC MP for Wa West, Mr Joseph Yieleh Chireh, asked Parliament to pursue the setting up of a Financial Administrative Tribunal to prosecute people who would be found culpable by the PAC.

Giving the directive to the committee, Mrs Bamford-Addo said Article 187 (6) of the Constitution empowered Parliament to set up a committee to ensure that the recommendations of the PAC were enforced.

He stated that the House could not continue to blame other institutions for the non-enforcement of the recommendations of the PAC.

For his part, the Deputy Majority Leader, Alhaji Rashid Pelpuo, said it was necessary for Parliament to go the extra mile to ensure the strict enforcement of the recommendations of the PAC through such actions that could ensure sanity in the country’s financial administration.