NDC Accuses Nana of Witch-Hunt’ Audits

The National Democratic Congress is up in arms with the Akufo-Addo-led administration for misusing taxpayers’ monies to conduct what it describes witch-hunt investigations.

According to the party’s General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia, the government has contracted audit firms to do work which only the Auditor-General is mandated to carry out.

“We have credible information that these private firms were not legally engaged since they were not officially authorised by the Auditor-General”, he said.

Addressing a news conference in Accra yesterday, he said the government has so far paid six million dollars to the private firms which constitute a waste of scarce resources.

The party’s reaction comes weeks after portions of an audit report by private firm Morrison and Associates were published in the media claiming that more than ¢800m misappropriated by state agencies under the Mahama government.

Mr. Asiedu Nketia also accused Edward Dua Ageyman, the Board Chairman of the Audit Service of sole-sourcing auditing work to private firms without the permission of the Auditor-General.

In the view of the NDC, Scribe Prof. Dua Agyeman does not have the integrity required to hold the position, urging President Akufo Addo to sack Prof. Agyeman Dua, who is also a former Auditor General, if he wants to win the fight against corruption.

“Dua Agyemang does not have the integrity and character to undertake such an assignment. The person who has been appointed by Nana Akufo-Addo to chair the Audit Service Board and who has been asked to recruit these private firms in the name of cabinet committee secretary is the one who has now been recycled to chair the audit service board to fight corruption.”

Mr. Asiedu Nketiah claimed: “In 1983, Dua Agyemang was banned by the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana from practicing accountancy and auditing in Ghana for forging an audit report for a private firm whose accounts he had neither seen nor audited.  The same Dua Agyemang, in 1986 led a team to conduct special investigations, at the end of the exercise he presented a forged report causing some heads of departments to suffer unjustly.”

Compiled by: Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson