GHC972m of donor funds not acknowledged

Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee has accused the Ministry of Finance of its inability to deal properly with the Multi-Donor Budgetary Support Inflows ( MDBS) from its development partners (DPs) between 2010 -2012.

It said about 53.16 per cent of total transfers by DPs, amounting to GHC972 million for the period under review, was not acknowledged by the Ministry of Finance, a situation it said put the credibility of the government on the line.

This was contained in the committee’s report on the financial audit report of the Auditor General on the verification study of MDBS during the period under review.

It said failure to acknowledge receipt of MDBS inflows from various DPs was contrary to the framework memorandum signed between the government and DPs and was also an affront to section 28 of the Financial Administration Regulations, 2004, (L.I. 1802).

Sections 28 of the Financial Administration Regulations requires the MoF to issue an original receipt to DPs and deal with the duplicate and triplicate copies as required by the Departmental Accounting Instructions of the Controller and Accountant-General.

Recommendations

The Committee, therefore, recommended to the Finance Ministry to, as matter of urgency, acknowledge receipt of the transfers.

It also urged the ministry to develop a structured system of acknowledging transfers by DPs by issuing them with Government Counterfoil Receipts (GCR).

The committee further urged the ministry to put a mechanism in place to ensure that desk officers tasked to work with DPs promptly acknowledged transfers as and when they are made.

Understatement/ overstatement of revenue

The report stated that due to the lack of regular reconciliation among the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Ghana and the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD), there were instances of overstatement and understatement of revenue and non-capturing of some transfers in the public accounts for the year 2012.

It said the transfer of over GHC20 million from the Government of Switzerland was not captured in the Public Accounts of Ghana for the year 2012 but was rather credited to a different account by BoG.http://ghanapoliticsonline.com

It also observed that an amount of over GHC33 million received from the Government of Canada was reported as GHC40 million under the heading “Grants” in the Public Accounts for the year 2012.

It further indicated that reconciliation of transfers made by DPs had not been regular among the MoF, CAGD and BoG.