KPMG’s failure to interview Manasseh Azure takes away from credibility of report – Kpebu

Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has cast doubt on the credibility of KPMG’s audit report on the revenue assurance contract between Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML) for failing to engage the lead investigator, Manasseh Azure Awuni.

He said the report was skewed in favour of the government and SML because KPMG did not engage key stakeholders for their input.

President Akufo-Addo, in January this year, commissioned the accounting and auditing firm to audit the GRA-SML contract following the Fourth Estate’s documentary titled ‘The GHC3 billion lie’ released in December 2023. The documentary unearthed some irregularities in the agreement between GRA and SML.

KPMG submitted its full report to the President on March 27, which was later released to the public by the presidency on Wednesday, May 22, after several calls from anti-corruption civil society organisations.

According to the audit findings, SML received a total of GH¢1,061,054,778.00 from 2018 to date [January 2, 2024] whilst partially fulfilling its obligations.

More details from the full report have revealed damning irregularities in a multi-year contract agreement between the state entity and SML.

However, the human rights lawyer and anti-graft campaigner expressed dissatisfaction with KPMG for neglecting the input of Manasseh Azure, the lead investigator of the documentary.

He made these reservations when he appeared on TV3’s political analysis programme, The Key Points on Saturday, May 25, 2024.

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Mr. Kpebu maintained that the reputable auditing first was lenient in its inquest.

“Going straight into it, one thing is very clear that the report though is very soft on SML and of course, you can understand why the President chose KPMG because they know that government has dealings with KPMG, so KPMG will be very charitable.”

“As we make the point that this KPMG report is skewed, one other way of knowing is that when you read from page 195 onwards you see that they interviewed everybody else apart from Manasseh…you could have interviewed him and not used it but to have left Manasseh out, the man who did the investigations and brought this out, that tells you that KPMG is not up scratch.”

“If you’re looking for insight, the first person to get insight from will be the one who did the documentary that led to all of this,” he emphasised.

Background

The Fourth Estate in its documentary reported alleged irregularities in a multi-million dollar contract awarded to SML by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).

Despite these claims, both the GRA and SML have strongly denied any misconduct. In response to the allegations, SML filed a defamation lawsuit against the Fourth Estate.

Amidst concerns regarding the contract, President Akufo-Addo tasked KPMG to conduct an audit to investigate the issue.

The post KPMG’s failure to interview Manasseh Azure takes away from credibility of report – Kpebu first appeared on 3News.

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