Two officers at the Old Tafo Municipal Assembly, including the Municipal Coordinating Director and the Finance Officer, are still walking freely after the Auditor-General failed to issue a disallowance and surcharge certificate against them.
The 2024 Auditor-General’s report revealed that at least GH¢58,126.21 has not been properly accounted for at the Old Tafo Municipal Assembly in the Ashanti Region.
According to the findings, the payment vouchers lacked the necessary supporting documents such as receipts, invoices, statements of claims, and other relevant documentation for verification.
These infractions took place between April and September 2024.
The report details four payment vouchers that were processed without documentation, including:
- A payment of GH¢29,126.21 for furniture supplied to the Police Command by Geoservice EPC Ltd.
- A payment of GH¢1,500.00 for uploading data on infrastructure projects into the government performance tracker, made to the Municipal Coordinating Director (MCD).
- A payment of GH¢2,500.00 for expenses incurred in data collection and uploading information regarding Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area (GKMA) household and institutional toilet facilities into the government performance tracker, also to the MCD.
- A contribution of GH¢25,000.00 towards monitoring and supervision of teaching and learning in schools, again to the MCD.
These actions constitute a clear violation of Regulation 78 of the Public Financial Management Regulations (PFMR), 2019 (L.I. 2378), which stipulates that the Principal Spending Officer of a covered entity is personally responsible for ensuring the validity, accuracy, and legality of each payment, as well as confirming that supporting documents for services received and certificates of work done exist.
In light of this serious infringement, the Auditor-General has recommended that the amount of GH¢58,126.21 be retrieved from the Coordinating Director and the Finance Officer of the Assembly and deposited into the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) account.
“We could not confirm the authenticity of the payments and therefore recommended that the amount of GH¢58,126.21 should be recovered from the Coordinating Director and the Finance Officer of the Assembly into the DACF account,” the A-G’s report stated.
