The Public Account Committee (PAC) of Parliament has criticized the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs for its failure to take into account monies for fuels allocated to vehicles belonging to the Ministry.
It emerged that the Ministry of Chieftancy and Religious Affairs has since 2015, not accounted for monies paid for fuel expenses for vehicles designated to the office. During a probing into the matter last year, the Chief Director of the Ministry, Benjamin Afful, assured the committee of correcting the blunder.
However, upon query on why the alterations had not been made even for the following year, 2016, Benjamin Afful blamed it on “administrative challenges” since his outfit was notified about the error.
Member of Parliament (MP) for Komenda Edina Eguafo Abrem, Samuel Atta Mills, expressing disappointment said despite assuring the committee of not repeating the same infraction, as it happened last year, nothing had been done about it.
“Last year’s was for 2015. It happened last year and it happened again. My question to you is that whatever you are telling us I don’t have confidence in it because it keeps on happening every year.” Samuel Atta Mills said.
The PAC member said the error was contrary to the Procurement and Store Regulation 1984 Chapter 16 Section 1604 and 1605.
According to 1604 of the regulation, full particulars of receipts of fuel, oil and lubricants must be recorded in vehicle log books while 1605 states that at the end of each month the rate of fuel consumption shall be computed in kilometres per litre and recorded in the log books.
Samuel Atta Mills reiterated, “So yes by regulation, you get your per diem, you get your hotels sorted, so you should also fill out your log book. And the reason I’m asking these is because it happened last year and now we are sitting here again.”
“GHC45,000 of the good people of Ghana, our money and we can’t account for it?” he asked rhetorically.
However Chief Director Benjamin Afful maintained that the Ministry is still working on culminating the records as an assistant Director, “a very senior officer who is charge of the drivers and the vehicles in the pools” has been appointed.
Assuring the PAC once again, he said, “So we will put in measures to ensure that this regulation is adhered to.”
