Rector grilled at PAC sitting for taking additional $1,000 as salary

Europa

August 17, 2017 11:04 AM

The Auditor-General found in its 2015 report that the rector was being paid $1,000 a month in addition to his monthly salary.

The Rector of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), Wilberforce Dzisah, was on Tuesday grilled during the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sitting over the additional salary of $69,588 (GH¢110,877) for himself, the vice rector, the registrar and the accountant of the school from 2012 to 2014.

The vice rector was being paid $600 and the registrar and the accountant were each taking $333 in addition to their salaries on a manual voucher.

This happens to be in blatant breach of Regulation 295 of the Financial Administration Regulation (FAR), which states that when a public servant’s personal emolument is payable on the Controller and Accountant-General’s mechanized payroll or department’s payroll, payment by manual voucher is prohibited, except otherwise approved by the Controller and Accountant-General.

But the rector said that the Governing Council of the Institute gave the approval, which was consequently sanctioned by the Ministry of Finance.

He said this was to reflect the new status of GIJ, which is now at the same level with universities and so being supervised by the Ministry of Education.

But the Minister of Education, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, who was at the committee sitting said the Governing Council could not have given the approval since it is still not in place.

However, the rector explained that the approval was given by the previous Council.

The Auditor-General also faulted the school for giving the current accountant, Mathias Dugu, several allowances, including professional allowances, acting allowance, rent allowance, entertainment allowance, off campus allowance and head of department allowance, all amounting to GH¢170,810 even though he is not a chartered accountant to merit those allowances.

The institute could not also give a report on details of contracts awarded by the management from 2012 to 2014.

Europa