Investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni has uncovered a major discrepancy in the Auditor-General’s report on COVID-19 expenditure, with GH¢299 million spent by the Ministry of Local Government on fumigation omitted from the report’s reported fumigation figure of GH¢96 million.

Mr Awuni disclosed the finding during an interview on Joy News’ PM Express on Tuesday.

He said he contacted the Audit Service after questions emerged over why the Ministry of Local Government’s fumigation expenditure was not captured in the Auditor-General’s COVID-19 expenditure report.

According to him, the Audit Service confirmed that the Ministry of Local Government was among the institutions audited.

“Well, at the beginning, I just wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt and to, one, be very sure that they audited it because the ministry in 2022 told me they had given their figures to auditors who were working on it, so I just wanted to be sure.”

Mr Awuni said the Audit Service provided him with an appendix listing the ministries covered by the audit.

“But beyond that, I specifically mentioned the Ministry of Local Government and also fumigation, and the Audit Service indeed told me that they audited everything, all the expenditure, whatever money they took and spent, they audited everything, including the fumigation.”

He said the Audit Service explained that omitting the expenditure from the report did not mean it had not been audited.

“And their response to that question was the fact that they did not include it didn’t mean that it was not audited.”

Mr Awuni said the explanation raised further questions because the Auditor-General’s report had specifically provided a figure for COVID-19 fumigation expenditure.

“So that is where I became curious because you have somewhere listed the cost of fumigation. They have the cost of the various COVID-19 expenditures, and when it came to fumigation, you said this is the cost, 96 million.”

He questioned why the GH¢299 million spent by the Ministry of Local Government was not reflected in the figure if the Audit Service had audited the ministry’s expenditure.

“So if you audited this ministry, which spent 299 million Ghana cedis on fumigation, they gave you the figures, you say you audited, why didn’t you capture it?”

Mr Awuni said the audit was also intended to provide a complete picture of how COVID-19 funds were received and spent, rather than focus only on suspected wrongdoing.

“When you look at the audit objectives, one of them, and they actually repeated that in my letter, was to give a fair representation of what was taken and what was spent.”

“It wasn’t so much about only wrongdoing.”

He said the omission of such a large expenditure raised concerns about whether the report provided a complete representation of COVID-19 spending.

“They also wanted, Okay, we took this much as a nation for COVID-19, and this is how much we spent.”

“So if you have huge figures spent by whole ministries totally omitted, I don’t think this response was so satisfactory.”