The Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) has launched a full-scale investigation into alleged procurement breaches at the Ghana Audit Service.
A private citizen lodged a complaint at EOCO against the Auditor General, Mr Daniel Yao Domelevo; the Deputy Auditor General (Finance and Administration), Mrs Roberta Assiamah-Appiah, and the Audit Service Board, accusing them of circumventing the procurement laws to procure some vehicles for the Audit Service.
Mr Domelevo has, however, denied all the allegations and described the petition as a “storm in a tea cup.” A source at EOCO told the Daily Graphic that already, Mrs Assiamah-Appiah had been interrogated.
“We will soon follow up with the interrogation of the rest,” the source said. The petition stated among others that the Audit Service had breached the Procurement Law, Act 663 in the procurement of vehicles worth almost GH¢6.2 million.
The petitioner, therefore, requested the anti-graft agency to conduct thorough investigations into the award of the contract for the supply of the vehicles and to determine whether proper procedures were followed by the Entity Tender Committee (ETC) in procuring them.
“Recommend appropriate sanctions in accordance with the Public Procurement Act, Act 663 as amended,” the petitioner stated.
The complaint is similar to an earlier call by the Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) for the removal of the Audit Service boss.
The pressure group threatened to petition President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to remove the Auditor General over what it called procurement breaches at the Audit Service.
It, therefore, asked the Attorney-General to commence criminal investigations into the procurement breaches of the Auditor General and take the necessary actions against him.
The Auditor General, in a video response on the allegations, sent to the Daily Graphic from South Africa, said he was unfazed by the probe because there was no wrongdoing in the procurement of the vehicles.
He explained that when the alleged procurement breaches were brought to his attention late last year, the service had not paid for the vehicles until the Public Procurement Board directed that the monies be paid.
Source:Fiilafmonline/Graphic
