PSC Tema Shipyard paid over 800K to 53 service providers with no evidence of work done – Auditor-General
The Auditor-General, Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu, says Management of PSC Tema Shipyard paid over 800,000 to 53 service providers without contract or agreement to determine the kind of services they will be offering.
This is contained in the Auditor-General’s 2021 report on public boards, corporations and statutory bodies.
But, management of the company blamed the anomaly on the Covid-19 pandemic which made it difficult to enter into a contract with the service providers.
According to the audit report, the audit team only sighted payment vouchers with signed list and bills from the service providers, hence it could not verify the work done against what was expected to be done and unit price charged.
Also, The Auditor-General said that its vouching of payments disclosed that the Shipyard paid total amount of GH¢263,455.35 to Maritime Labour Organisation as service fees without evidence of work done such as reports from supervisors or heads of units indicating work performed, name of vessels Maritime Labour Organisation worked on, the offices and places Maritime Labour Organisation provided cleaning services and others to substantiate the payment.
The Auditor-General has thus recommended that the Chief Executive Officer and the Head of Finance should produce the contract agreement, evidence of work done, and the basis of the amount paid to authenticate the payments.
A total of ¢17.4 billion in financial irregularities have been flagged by the Auditor-General in its latest report submitted to parliament for the 2021 financial year.
This represents a 36% rise compared to that of 2020. This is the conclusion reached by the Auditor-General after an audit of the accounts of at least 101 institutions.
Similar audit reports conducted on institutions in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 show irregularities to the tune of GH₵ 12 billion, GH₵3 billion, GH₵ 5.4 billion, GH₵ 12.8 billion respectively.
Source: Ghana News
