Private Legal Practitioner, Martin Kpebu, says the pressure being mounted on the Auditor-General to exercise his powers of surcharge and disallowance is only meant to incentivize him to do his work.

According to him, while it is commonplace for some state officials to refuse to fully perform their mandated duties due to the fear of stepping on the toes of the powers that be, it is important that for someone in the position of the Auditor General those shackles be broken.

He explained that failing to incentivize the Auditor General to come out of his shell would spell doom for the country as more state funds wind up in people’s pockets.

His comment follows calls from Civil Society Organisations to the Auditor General due to the latter’s refusal to issue surcharges and disallowances.

According to the CSOs coalition, the Auditor General’s refusal to perform his constitutionally mandated duties has contributed to the impunity and the rise in state funds misuse in state agencies and institutions.

Speaking on PM Express, Martin Kpebu said, “Yes ordinarily some people belong to that school of thought, and that will go for people who just want to protect their own bread and butter. But if you have a person who thinks Ghana first, that shouldn’t be the consideration.

“So we will always have these categories of public workers; there are those who will always tell you ‘it’s about me and my family, as for Ghana it’s a lost cause’. So if you belong to that school of thought and you think ‘oh let me just grab for me, my wife and my kids,’ that’s how come such a person will not dare touch any sacred cows, so to speak.”

He added that “But if you belong to the other school where you think that no, Ghana must work again, you go in. And so we are basically trying to insentivise Mr. Johnson Asiedu to be able to belong to that category of a bold spirit, to be able to make Ghana work again. If Domelevo did it, why not Mr. Asiedu? Why not?

“And they worked together. He was a Deputy to Domelevo so I believe he would have learnt a thing or two from Mr. Domelevo. And let’s not also forget, at least on record he has issued one disallowance and surcharge and Domelevo did over a hundred.

“So you’ll see that our effort will help him. We’ll try to free him from the cabal that is trying to obstruct him so that he can issue more. He should be able to issue more so that he can bring in a lot of the monies that are in people’s pockets.”