The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, yesterday ordered the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr. Kofi Wampah, to appear before it to explain some financial irregularities in the Public Account (Consolidated Fund).
This was when Dr. Wampah failed to appear before the committee at its sitting yesterday, and instead sent two officials of the bank, who were unable to feed the committee with the required information.
The officials told the committee that they had been instructed to get an insight into the issues raised by the committee, and report back to the governor for the appropriate response to be given later.
But the committee, chaired by the Member of Parliament (MP) of Dormaa Central, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, turned down the excuse, and asked them to tell the governor to appear before Parliament himself.
The MPs said aside the governor, the only persons they would entertain was either his deputy or any official who could offer explanations to the irregularities.
Before the officials appeared, the committee had been waiting for the governor for over an hour, with the Deputy Finance Minister, Mrs. Mona Quartey, and directors from the ministry and Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) already seated.
They were to assist the committee to unravel the circumstances leading to financial irregularities in the Auditor-General’s 2011, 2012 and 2013 reports on Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
The committee’s chairman postponed the sitting to today, and urged the governor to personally appear before Parliament.
Earlier, the Commissioner of GRA, George Blankson, was questioned for failing to retrieve an amount of GH57,723 from the tax payers.
The tax payers had issued cheques to settle their tax liabilities, but they were dishonored by their bankers upon presentation for payment.
The tax officials had also not made much effort to retrieve the entire amount from the tax payers, according to the A-G’s 2012 report on MDAs.
Mr. blankson said the commission had taken notice of the issue and had put measures in place to retrieve the monies.
He said his outfit had held meetings at various levels with the ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana to find solutions to prevent such infractions.
Source: The Ghanaian Times
