The former Executive Director of Ghana Integrity Initiative’s admonishing follows a claim by the Attorney-General that the Auditor-General breached the constitution by publishing the report on COVID-19 expenditures even before parliament could debate it.
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Don’t allow Godfred Dame to intimidate you – Vitus Azeem to Auditor-General
Vitus Azeem, an anti-corruption campaigner has urged the Auditor-General, Johnson Akuamoah-Asiedu to stand his ground and not kowtow to intimidation by Attorney-General Dodfred Dame.
Don’t allow Godfred Dame to intimidate you – Vitus Azeem to Auditor-General
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In a letter addressed to the Auditor-General, Dame quoted Article 187(5) of the constitution, arguing that the release of the COVID-19 expenditure report to the public was premature because parliament had not dealt with it.
He added, quoting further Article 187(6) to say that Parliament should have debated on the report and where necessary set a committee to deal with any matters arising from it before the Auditor-General would publish it.
Dame, therefore, asked Akuamoah-Asiedu to unpublish the report which is already in the public domain.
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However, like some analysts, Azeem disagreed with the Attorney-General, saying the Auditor-General’s work is sacrosanct, and that Dame should steer clear of the independent institution.
“This is not the first time the Auditor General Report has been made public before it was discussed by Parliament. So I don’t know why all of a sudden the Attorney General is concerned about this particular one. Is it because of the embarrassing revelation that it has made?
“Has Parliament complained and shouldn’t it be left with the Speaker to call the Auditor General to order if he is doing the wrong thing? So why is the Attorney General not complaining to the Speaker rather than writing directly to the Auditor General? When the Auditor General works nobody has the right to do anything to the work,” he told Starr FM as quoted by starrfm.com.gh.
“The Attorney General cannot give a directive to the Auditor General if he has a concern he should write to the Speaker of Parliament and not directly to the Auditor General. Maybe that’s the aim but I don’t think the Auditor General should bow to that intimidation,” he stressed.
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Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Public Account Committee in Parliament, James Klutsey Avedzi said the Auditor-General has not breached any law by publishing his work because he has a 6-month constitutional requirement to meet.
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