Majority leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, has criticised the Auditor-General for publishing its report on disbursement of Covid-19 funds without recourse to Parliament.

According to him, the Auditor-General is an instrument for the legislature to perform its checks and balances on other institutions, hence must work in tandem with them.

“The Auditor-General will respect the fact that he is a tool for Parliament in the performance of its oversight functions,” he said during the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the legislature on Wednesday.

The Suame MP explained that the Auditor-General must pass its report through the legislature before making it public.

“The A-G therefore, cannot unilaterally exact and prosecute charges and even before submitting his report to Parliament, find a way to leak the recommendations to the general public,” he said.

The Majority Leader’s comments have amplified the demand by the Attorney-General (A-G), Godfred Yeboah Dame, for the Auditor-General to unpublish the Audit Report on disbursement of Covid-19 funds.

This, the Attorney-General said, is because the Auditor-General did not follow the dictates of the law which is to present the report to Parliament before publishing.

Outlining other constitutional orders that can help improve the services of the Auditor-General Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said, “we need a new constitutional order where asset declared by public servants can be traced and tracked by the Auditor-General for purposes of tax compliance and not encourage a system where public servants declare their assets that they do not have, but an asset that they aspire to have.”

Touching on other aspects of the constitution which needs to be reviewed, the Majority Leader said, “there is a need for an order to ensure gender equity, an order that would prevent the constant increase in the number of seats in Parliament, an order that will put a cap on the number of ministers of state and an order which will ensure that the Speaker of Parliament is a serving member of the House.”

Meanwhile, the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has warned that Ghana’s democracy seems to have been taken over by the NDC and NPP.

“We have to look at how come we have gone down from multiparty system to the duopoly,” he said.