Ghana Atomic Energy sanctioned for breaching Financial Administration Act
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Tuesday sanctioned the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) for serious breaches to the country’s Financial Administration Act.
GAEC has for three consecutive years – 2009, 2010 and 2011 – not accounted for the subventions it received from government, a clear violation of the statutory requirement of furnishing the Auditor-General with accounts for validation three months after every financial year.
The legislators expressed their displeasure about the issue and decried the general disorder in Ghana’s financial administration regime, asserting that a radical approach should be sought to fix the problem.
The PAC is considering the Auditor-General’s Report for 2010 and 2011 at a two week public sitting.
Tuesday’s hearing saw the Committee scrutinizing the audited accounts of institutions under the Ministries of Environment and Technology and Roads and Transport.
By law, the Financial Administration Act does not permit the release of subventions to any organization if it fails to provide its accounts for scrutiny. But GAEC has had its yearly monetary allocations made to it despite the clear breach of the Act.
However, GAEC has made an apology for its accounting weaknesses which the PAC has not accepted, ordering the Board of the organisation to report to it (PAC) in two weeks with their decision on what punitive action should be meted on the Management of GAEC for the anomaly.
“We have a backlog of accounts and we apologise for it,” Mr Cyprian Bassing, GAEC’s Director of Finance told the Committee.
But the Deputy Auditor-General, Mr Yaw Sefa, who was also before the Committee, retorted that the issue was not one to be sorry about because it was a legal necessity that their accounts be audited and if they had not submitted them for three years running then it was a breach of the law which should attract sanctions.
“There is something happening there (GAEC) that he may be hiding that is why he is not submitting the Commission’s accounts for audit,” Committee Chairman Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, MP for Dormaa, said.
Mr Agyemang-Manu said GAEC should be concerned that their accounts had not been validated for that long, insisting that the Management of the Commission should be panicky as to why they oversee an organisation that was flouting constitutional provisions.
“You should be panicky that you sit in an organisation that in 2013 is dealing with 2009 accounts.
“What is even more dangerous is that you are now submitting your 2011 and 2012 accounts based on unaudited balance from 2011,” he said.
Thus the PAC had decided that they would impress upon the House to ensure that the budget for GAEC was not implemented until all their accounts were properly reconciled.
But Mr Slyvester Enimana, Chief Director of the sector ministry, had pleaded that that line of action would put untold hardships on staff of the organisation that had nothing to do with accounting.
He explained that over 90 percent of the subvention allocated to GAEC went into wages and emoluments and very little was allotted for goods and services, adding that the ministry would take up issues with the Management of the Commission for the matter to be resolved.
Source: GNA