Auditor General Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu said PSC Tema shipyard management had paid more than $800,000 to 53 service providers without contracts or agreements to determine what kind of services they would provide.
This is contained in the Auditor General’s 2021 Report on Public Boards, Corporations and Statutory Bodies.
But the company’s management attributed the anomaly to the Covid-19 pandemic which made it difficult to contract with service providers.
According to the audit report, the audit team only saw payment vouchers with the signed list and invoices from service providers, so they could not verify the work performed against them. what was planned and at the unit price invoiced.
In addition, the Auditor General stated that his guarantee of payments revealed that the shipyard had paid a total of GH¢263,455.35 to the Maritime Labor Organization as service charges without proof of work performed, such that reports from supervisors or heads of units showing the work performed, the name of the vessels on which the Maritime Labor Organization worked, the offices and locations where the Maritime Labor Organization provided cleaning and cleaning services; others to justify the payment.
The Auditor General therefore recommended that the General Manager and Chief Financial Officer produce the contractual agreement, proof of work performed and basis of amount paid to authenticate the payments.
A total of 17.4 billion yen in financial irregularities was flagged by the Auditor General in his latest report to parliament for fiscal year 2021.
This represents an increase of 36% compared to that of 2020. This is the conclusion reached by the auditor general after an audit of the accounts of at least 101 institutions.
Similar audit reports conducted on institutions in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 show irregularities amounting to GH₵12 billion, GH₵3 billion, GH₵5.4 billion, GH₵12.8 billion respectively.
