Ghana Government loses GHc39m over wasteful expenditure

A Corruption Watch (CW) investigation has found that failure by some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to work together and align their policies and procedures has led to more than GHc39m worth of Value books printed by the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD).

The Value books have since gone waste as the MDAs have not claimed or used them for 18 years.

The Value Books printed between the year 2000 and 2010 have remained in the warehouse of the CAGD Annex for close to two decades as all efforts by CAGD to remind the MDAs to free the warehouse of the abandoned stocks have yielded no response from the MDAs.

Corruption Watch findings also showed that CAGD printed an unrealistic quantity of value books which have lasted for almost two decades without taking into account the changes in the running, procedure and documentation in these MDAs as the years went by.

These changes have rendered most of the value books unusable.

Value Books are documents used in raising revenue for the state. These documents include receipts, passport forms, passports, land certificates and many others.

The six MDAs which contributed to the wasteful expenditure include The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Ministry of Health (MOH), Lands Commission, Registrar General’s Department (RGD), Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA).

The CAGD may also not escape blame because they continued to print the value books despite changes in the documentation and computerization processes as the last printing of the abandoned printing was done on October 23, 2009. CW learnt.

The amount spent on printing the value books for the various institutions are listed in the table below:

MDAS – AMOUNT

RGD – Ghc15,846,989

Land Commission – Ghc18,926,315.00

MFA – GHc2,178,420.00

GRA – GHc1,190,280

DVLA – Ghc967,482.00

MOH – GHc138,400.00

Source: adomonline.com