The Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), Eric Oduro Osae, has admitted that while internal auditors detect financial irregularities in public institutions, they are unable to prevent them due to legal and administrative constraints.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Monday, February 24, which discussed the GH¢99.57 billion said to been lost to the state, Dr Osae explained that the current system does not empower internal auditors to take immediate action.

“The system is not allowing internal auditors to work because of administrative and legal bureaucracy. We provide guidance and standards and have even led the country to adopt national global internal audit standards. But if the law supporting our application is weak, it does not help us,” he said.

He further pointed out that poor conditions of service for internal auditors weaken their ability to play a preventive role in public financial management.

“Internal auditors are not paid well and have the worst conditions of service among all actors in the PFM chain. If they are not well-resourced, they cannot perform their duties effectively,” he added.

Dr Osae revealed that although the agency receives reports on ongoing fraud and irregularities, it lacks the power to intervene directly.

“We are not clothed with the power to move in and prevent it. We have to work through other institutions like EOCO to retrieve unearned salaries and address economic crimes reported by the Auditor-General,” he explained.

He emphasised that strengthening the law and improving working conditions for internal auditors would help reduce financial irregularities.

“Anyone who understands public finance knows that before an external auditor detects something, the internal auditor has already seen it. If internal auditors are empowered, they can prevent these issues before they escalate.

Dr Osae called for a legal review to grant the agency the power to act properly,

"For now, we see things, but we cannot prevent them, so we need our law properly reviewed to give us the power to be able prevent appropriately,” he said.