Governance expert and former Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency, Dr. Eric Oduro Osae, is calling for a radical overhaul of Ghana’s public financial accountability system, warning that the Auditor-General’s growing reports of financial irregularities are meaningless without corresponding evidence of recoveries.
Reacting to the staggering GH¢18.4 billion in irregularities flagged in the Auditor-General’s 2024 report—a 109% increase from GH¢8.8 billion in 2023—Dr. Osae said the time for rhetoric is over. What the country urgently needs, he stressed, is transparency, enforcement, and recovery.
“We can no longer afford to treat these audit reports as annual rituals. The public deserves to know how much of these so-called ‘recoverable’ funds have actually been retrieved,” Dr. Osae said in a media interview.
Demand for Recovery Data, Not Just Headlines
Dr. Osae emphasized that while the 2024 report states that 84.5% of the infractions are considered recoverable, no data has been provided to show how much was retrieved from previous years.
“Before releasing the new report, the Auditor-General should have shown us what was recovered from the GH¢8.8 billion in 2023. If you recovered, say, GH¢5 billion, it gives the public confidence. Right now, we don’t know.”
He urged the Auditor-General to publish a consolidated recovery report—detailing actual amounts retrieved year-on-year—rather than issuing “alarming figures without closure.”
Systemic Rot Beyond Politics
While the public often blames politicians for financial mismanagement, Dr. Osae said the deeper problem lies within the bureaucracy. Technical officers, finance directors, and chief accountants who are permanent fixtures in government ministries, departments, and agencies, he noted, are at the heart of many irregularities.
“No politician signs a cheque,” he argued. “It’s the finance officers and chief directors who run the system—and the rot.”
The 2024 audit revealed worrying trends in key institutions:
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Irregularities in the District Assemblies Common Fund rose 317%, from GH¢49 million in 2023 to GH¢205 million in 2024.
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Pre-tertiary education institutions recorded a 213% surge, from GH¢7 million to GH¢23 million.
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Inter-agency debts between SOEs were cited as major drivers of the infractions.
Dr. Osae questioned why simple reconciliations between state agencies—such as debts between ECG and Ghana Water Company—cannot be resolved internally without ballooning into audit red flags.
Failure to Enforce: Laws Exist but Are Ignored
Beyond recovery, Dr. Osae questioned the Auditor-General’s reluctance to exercise his constitutional powers to surcharge offending officials and institutions.
“The Auditor-General has the power to surcharge and disallow. What happened to those tools?” he asked.
“People appear before the Public Accounts Committee, but nothing happens afterward. The Attorney-General receives referrals and fails to act. It’s a broken chain of accountability.”
He warned that such neglect undermines public trust and weakens Ghana’s position when seeking external support from institutions like the IMF.
“We shouldn’t be running to the IMF while leaving billions unrecovered on the table. That’s not a serious country.”
Calling for a Return to Results-Oriented Auditing
Dr. Osae praised former Auditor-General Daniel Domelevo for being proactive in tracking and retrieving lost funds and urged the current administration to emulate that approach.
“Domelevo chased people. He didn’t just report; he recovered. We need that energy again,” he said.
As pressure mounts for accountability, Dr. Osae’s comments are likely to fuel public demand for a shift in how Ghana handles audit findings—moving from report generation to actual enforcement and recovery of public funds.
