Government must account for the $6.8m spent on illegal ‘ghost audits’ – NDC

The Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has called on the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to account for an amount of $6.8 million that has been allegedly paid to a private auditing firm to audit the dealings of the previous administration.

According the General Secretary of the NDC, the NPP government has paid a private auditor to do a job that has already being done by State apparatus to probe into the erstwhile Mahama administration in the bid to tarnish the hard earned reputation of appointees whose only crime was to serve their nation diligently.

Addressing a press conference, Johnson Asiedu Nketia said, “The NDC has credible information that an amount of at least $6.8million has so far being paid by the NPP government under President Akufo-Addo’s watch to these private firms to carry out work that’s already being done or has been completed by state agencies.”

He added that the party has credible information from some former Members of Parliament and former government appointees that they had received letters to avail themselves to state investigation bodies including the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO).

He questioned the reason for which government is paying the private auditor to do the same job adding that, “the taxpayers’ money is being spent on state agencies like the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, the Economic and Organised Crimes Office (EOCO), the Special Prosecutor’s Office, the Auditor General’s Department and the Attorney General’s. Any of these [institutions] could have carried out these audits.”

He further advised former ministers in the erstwhile administration not to subject themselves to questioning by any private auditor or company, and further called on the government to put a stop to the witch-hunting of former appointees and “concentrate on fighting the menace of one-day-one-corruption allegation in the country.”