The Auditor-General, Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu, says Management of PSC Tema Shipyard paid over GHC800,000 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 has 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 disclosed that the Shipyard paid a total amount of GH¢263,455.35 to Maritime Labour Organisation as service fees without evidence of work done.

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 for 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, and GH₵ 12.8 billion respectively.