iWatch Africa, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting transparency and accountability has indicted former President John Mahama in the Auditor-General’s report on the Consolidated Fund for overspending GH¢3 billion on the 2016 budget.
According to iWatch, the Office of Government Machinery (General Government Services) was allotted GH¢2,988,826,659 as represented in the revised budget for 2016 but managed to spend GH¢6,103,994,114.
The over GH¢3 billion in excess expenditure is well over a 100 percent of their allotted budget.
The Auditor General blamed the Budget Division of the Ministry of Finance for failing to ensure that approved activities were regularly monitored and reviewed against the approved budget which resulted in the excess expenditure.
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Every year, the Auditor-General makes serious findings of many instances of misapplication of colossal amounts by public office holders but has failed to make significant progress when it comes to recovery of misappropriated and misapplied funds.
The Supreme Court in June 2017 ordered the Auditor-General to surcharge persons found to have misappropriated monies belonging to the state.
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The seven-member panel of justices, presided over by incoming Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo, did not give reasons for their judgment at the time.
The order followed a suit filed by pressure group, Occupy Ghana in June 2016, seeking an order that would direct the Auditor-General to issue disallowances and surcharges to and in respect of all persons and entities found in relevant, successive reports to have engaged in misappropriation of state funds.