The Auditor General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo has said that the Ghana Audit Service will refer infractions it had identified in its reports to the Office of the Special Prosecutor (SP) for prosecution.
According to him, under section three of the SP Act, it is required that the office should be able to investigate alleged corruption and corruption-related offenses, which were submitted to Parliament and the AG.
Others are, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO); adding that, “is the interface between our office and the SP.
“Therefore, now in the course of our audit if we identify abuses or infractions, which we suspect are criminal or fraudulent, what we will do is, we will submit it to the SP. And then the SP can prosecute on our behalf,†he said.
He said the governing body of the Office of the SP is a board consisting of one representative of the Audit Service, not below the rank of a Director, nominated by the AG.
Mr. Domelevo made this known on Friday in Accra, during a day’s seminar organized by the 2013 Year Group of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICA-Ghana) on the theme, “The role of the Auditor General in the facilitation of the work of the Special Prosecutorâ€.
He argued that “if the office of the Auditor General should limit the fight against corruption to only what auditors could do, (that is reporting, disallowing and collecting the money); people would still play games with public fundsâ€.
“Because remember, there is a likelihood that audit may not be able to identify that offense. So people will still like to play games with it,†he said.
The AG, therefore, called for the protection of the public fund; declaring that “when we have detected abuse of public fund and collected it, that should not end there, we need to punish the offendersâ€.
He announced that there was a team in place to undertake construction auditing of all projects such as roads and buildings construction.
The President of the 2013 Year Group of the ICA – Ghana, Mrs. Diana Yarboi, said they thought it necessary to organize the programme because, according to her, there was a link between the work of the AG and that of the SP.
Mr. Christian Sottie, the President of the ICA – Ghana, said the AG’s decision to establish a Construction Audit Unit was a laudable idea.