[ 2021-02-17 ]

OccupyGhana takes on Kan Dapaah over comments on Auditor-General’s independence
Pressure group OccupyGhana is upset with the
Minister-designate for National Security, Albert
Kan Dapaah, for saying the independence of the
Auditor-General only pertains to the Audit
Service.

In a statement, the group said the comments have
no basis in law.

The group also said such assertions “feed into
an attempt by some political actors… seeking to
whittle down that independence and powers that the
court upheld in that decision.”

“Mr Kan Dapaah is wrong in his claim that this
independence is “not personal” to the
Auditor-General, but belongs to the Audit Service.
The simplest reading of article 187(7) shows that
the Constitution gives this independence to the
office of the Auditor-General and not the Audit
Service, which is created by article 188 and is
given no such independence.”

Mr. Kan Dapaah, during his vetting last week, also
held that the Auditor-General’s reports must be
approved by Parliament before the Auditor-General
could issue disallowances and surcharges.

But the group retorted that the
minister-nominee’s position does not also find
support in the Audit Service Act.

“It is not a coincidence that the framers of the
Constitution placed the Auditor-General’s
independence and powers of disallowance and
surcharge in the same paragraph of the
Constitution, as if the two are to move in
tandem,” OccupyGhana stated.

The group is worried that Mr. Kan Dapaah’s views
may “feed into the current narrative in the
political class that seeks to clip the wings of
the Auditor-General, particularly after the
decision of the Supreme Court in OccupyGhana v
Attorney-General”.

Source - Citinewsroom

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