Staff of 3 state institutions to be prosecuted for misappropriating COVID-19 funds

Some staff of three state institutions will face trial for misappropriating funds meant for the fight against COVID-19.

According to the Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), Dr Eric Oduro Osae, investigations are in the final phase before prosecution.

He said in 2021, they started receiving internal audit reports from the internal auditors as far as the Covid-19 expenditure audit is concerned.

“We started reviewing them in 2021 and some of the expenditure areas were revealing. Areas where we have challenges we do a follow up. A team is sent to the field to go and validate.”

“Those we think have criminal consequences, we would work with EOCO to prosecute them. I’m not allowed to indicate what we are doing or the level of prosecution but I can assure you that at the moment, we are working with EOCO to prosecute three institutions,” he disclosed.

He added that the IAA has already set up an audit report review panel to audit all Covid-19 spending.

“As far as the Internal Audit Agency is concerned, we continued to pursue and establish how total Covid-19 expenditure were spent and whether we are getting value for money.”

“The challenge with Covid-19 expenditure is that it is bothered by service delivery which we use financial audit. This won’t aid in us getting the needed results; we need a performance audit,” he stated.

According to him, the Agency is collaborating with the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) to fast track the processes for the prosecution.

Dr Oduro Osae was speaking at the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition public forum on the accountability gap in Covid-19 responses of Ghana.

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