OFFICIALS OF the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), the ICT policy implementing arm of the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation, are unable to produce payment vouchers for the expenditure of GH¢627,490.
A report by the Auditor General said there had been flaws in the accounting processes and breach of Regulation 1 of the Financial Administration Regulation, 2004 over the spending of the said amount.
Members of Parliament (MPs) on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), who are reviewing the report, have consequently charged officials of NITA to, by Wednesday, produce a total of 54 payment vouchers that cover GH¢627,490 spent.
The committee cited the NITA officials for dereliction by withholding an amount of GH¢120,381.07 that was to be remitted to Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), thereby denying the state the much needed revenue.
NITA’s Director of Finance and Administration, Richard Okyere-Fosu, who blamed the situation on office relocation, apologised for his outfit’s inability to produce backup documents and pledged to remedy the situation.
Payment vouchers form part of an internal accounting control mechanism to ensure that every payment is properly authorised and that the goods or services purchased are actually received.
Mr. Okyere-Fosu said he had been in office barely a year and that he did not have records of the two management reports on assumption of office, adding that “the issue that we are referring to, I understand from my financial team, that the list of the vouchers was only given to him this week.”
According to him, they were yet to “track the document” for onward presentation to the auditors and PAC.
However, the Chairman of PAC, James Klutse Avedzi, insisted the explanations were not good enough and asked the officials of NITA to make available to the committee all the payment vouchers by Wednesday, June 30 for verification or face the necessary sanctions.
Meanwhile, it also emerged that a total of GH¢1,747,658.10 collected in 2016 as internally generated fund (IGF) by the Ministry of Communication and Digitalisation was not lodged into the public funds account.
MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament at their sitting last Friday again discovered that the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence (KACE) in ICT disbursed GH¢1,344,171.29 without authorisation.
The amount was taken out of some GH¢1,747,658.10 IGF collected within the period.
MPs on the committee wondered why the KACE in ICT failed to recover the money with interest as directed by the Auditor General in a report submitted to Parliament.
It also came to light that a former Technical Officer of the Lands Commission at Wa in the Upper West Region, Joshua Toxla, vacated post on October 13, 2016, but he continued to be paid his salary until March 2017, which culminated in an unearned salary of GH¢9,022.98.
Officials of the Lands Commission explained that management had arranged with Mr. Toxla to refund the outstanding unearned salary for onward payment into the Consolidated Fund.
PAC was also angry that GH¢11,234.38 taxes, withheld from allowances paid to committee members and temporary staff, were not remitted to the Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) as required by law.
