Retired Controller and Accountant General Dr. Ralf Tuffuor has warned that if the country does not limit the rate at which special funds are created out of the consolidated fund, “ a time is coming when the consolidated fund will be empty”. He decried the phenomenon where parliament has been given “the freedom to create additional funds or specialized funds out of the consolidated for every other purpose”.

Dr. Tufuor was unimpressed that though the salaries of all prominent institutions are on the consolidated fund, “we have given parliament the freedom to create more funds”. This he fears could drain the consolidated fund. The practice, according to Dr. Tufuor, was unhealthy since “The constitution does not limit the extent to which you cannot go below (the consolidated fund)”; such that specialized treatment must be attached to whatever the purpose of expenditure could be.

He urged that “if we believe in the consolidated fund, there must be a way of limiting the so called leakage”; emphasizing, “if you think the consolidated fund should be all in all then we should make sure that we don’t take plenty of these things off’’. Speaking on Tarzan’s Take on Joy News Multi-TV, Dr. Tuffuor was saddened by the situation where all revenues that accrue to the state are not captured including gifts and grants. Describing it as “Financial Democracy”, he explained that all revenues are not known to parliament citing gifts and grants from donor partners as some elements that are given to government without the approval of parliament.

He also referred to the United Nation’s funds appropriated to soldiers as not being in the consolidated fund. This, he says, kind of siphons whatever revenue is supposed to be pouring into the consolidated fund for the general good.

Explaining the bearing of the phenomenon on the job of the Auditor General and what could have been done about it, the retired Auditor General Dr. Edward Dua Agyman indicated that the Auditor Generals Department would normally audit what the Accountant General provides it with. “We don’t go fishing for what we conjecture must be possibly there but missing”, he said. He however admitted that “it is possible to read from the papers that some monies have been give to a minister as an individual but not a ministry for that matter”.

According to him unlike the Accountant General whose actions or duties are prescribed by articles in the constitution, the Auditor General will initiate most reports such as the Ghana @50, as a result of the amount spent by the committee based on provisions in the constitution. Dr. Ralf Tufuor concluded by also condemning the use of government money by some state institutions to buy treasury bills, which is a total disregard to the provision in the constitution; “so you have government paying money out of its own money” he bemoaned.

He was however optimistic the introduction of the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (GIFMIS), among others will address the problem.