The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament yesterday suspended sittings midway through with directors of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) and the Cocoa Marketing Company Ghana Limited (CMCG) for their incomplete and mixed-up responses to queries raised against them in the Auditor General’s reports.
The 2012, 2013 and 2014 Auditor General’s reports cited COCOBOD and CMCG for engaging in financial improprieties and failure to recover debts.
But much of the responses of the directors of the two state-owned companies were incomplete and incoherent.
And occasionally when members of the PAC exposed the incoherence and mix-up in the responses, the directors would request for some time to go back and prepare complete responses.
COCOBOD
Even at a time, COCOBOD directors had to apologise to the PAC for providing a wrong information in relation to recovery of outstanding balance from Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs).
In its statement, COCOBOD indicated that it had recovered all its outstanding balance of GH¢100,422 from all the LBCs.
And when the PAC requested for the names of the LBCs involved and the evidence of the payment, the COCOBOD directors said they did not have the evidence.
They admitted that the responses given to the PAC was incomplete.
That response made the Vice Chairman of the PAC, Mr Samuel Atta Akyea, to indicate that COCOBOD could be cited for committing perjury, for stating that it had recovered all the money from the LBCs when it was not the case.
Cocoa Marketing Company
The infractions against the CMCG directors were in relation to the delay in the retirement of staff imprest and differences on staff debtors balances.
The CMCG directors requested for some time to go back and prepare complete responses to the queries.
Waste of taxpayers’ resources
A Ranking Member of the PAC, Alhaji Ibrahim Abubakari Dey, said the appearance of directors before the committee unprepared amounted to a waste of taxpayers’ resources.
He suggested that such directors and their institutions should be made to pay for causing financial loss to the state.
The suggestion was supported by some members of the committee.
By: Graphic Online
