The Controller and Accountant General’s Department has announced a collaboration with the Office of the Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute persons found culpable in payroll irregularities.
This follows concerns raised by the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament about the high number of financial irregularities, such as the payment of unearned salaries, responsibility allowances to undeserving staff, and the overpayment of salaries, as cited in the 2024 Auditor-General’s report.
Appearing before the committee in Accra on Monday, August 25, the Controller and Accountant General, Kwasi Agyei, noted that although such monies are recovered in some instances, perpetrators ought to be sanctioned.
“My issue is we shouldn’t just end at recovery because we realised that we were happy when they said recovered then we tick. We should go beyond recovery… The audit report will definitely indicate the recipients and their staff ID. We are working in collaboration with other security agencies, OSP, because if somebody did it definitely we are using an oracle system.
“There is an audit trail. We can go straight into the system and know, identify who actually on that particular day possess the allowance. It is something very easy that we can do. Once we get that we will just exercise patience and then definitely with the investigation those culpable will be brought to book.”
