Debt Audit Commission Will Only Deepen Bureaucracies – Govt

Government has described as a duplication of functions suggestions for the creation of a Debt Audit Commission to regulate the country’s borrowings and reduce its debt burden.

Chairman of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Dr. Mark AssibeyYeboah explains that yielding to such requests will rather complicate the current issue as there already are institutions which have oversight responsibilities on all government’s borrowing plans.

“It will be just another bureaucracy; the institutions are manned by people it is politicians who are going to appoint people to manage these institutions. There are existing institutions already so if you equip them and insulate them from political interference, they should be able to work. This decision is another needless bureaucracy which is not going to lead to anything new,” he argued in an interview.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has advocated for the establishment of a Debt Audit Commission as a means to avoid unwarranted borrowing.

The economic think tank maintains that the move will also reduce the interest payments on the country’s debt currently at an estimated 139 billion cedis.

“So when that audit is done, we will be able to know or understand how much that we borrowed, what was used for and how much is left…in our case because our lenders think we have enough oil resources for instance, they are readily available to provide the money during the government’s Eurobond issues,” Executive Director of IFS, Professor Newman Kusi told Citi Business News.

But Dr. Assibey Yeboah insists that the current institutions would be strengthened to help protect the public purse.

“There is the Auditor General’s office which recently saved the country 5.4 billion cedis through the auditing of claims submitted by cabinet. There are also the Controller and Accountant General’s Department, the Bank of Ghana as well as the Debt Management Division of the Finance Ministry,” he added.