Member of Parliament for Old Tafo, Ekow Vincent Assafuah, has expressed concern over the Auditor-General's decision to undertake a special audit of the government payroll, describing it as a waste of state resources.
According to him, there is already a system in place that conducts monthly audits of the public payroll, making the proposed special audit unnecessary and redundant. "More importantly, this so-called special audit duplicates an existing mechanism already set in motion by the previous administration.
Under that initiative, Internal Auditors, the Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD), and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) have been conducting monthly reviews of public sector payrolls to identify and eliminate ghost names," he said. "There is absolutely no justification for this parallel exercise, which only wastes state resources, burdens the already overstretched staff of the Audit Service, and sends the wrong signals to civil and public servants across the country." He has therefore urged the Auditor-General, Mr.
Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu, to incorporate any necessary payroll reviews into the routine audit plans for the 2024/2025 audit year, instead of pursuing this as a special operation. "That would preserve institutional credibility, ensure transparency, and maintain public confidence in the Audit Service," he added.
