The Controller and Accountant General’s report to Parliament has revealed that most ministries and departments exceeded their budget allocations by over 300 percent, running into billions of cedis.

The Controller and Accountant General Ms Grace Francisca Adzroe who took her turn before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee to answer for the financial irregularities in the audit reports from 2010 to 2013, said in 2012, the Electoral Commission spent 180 million cedis instead of the approved 20 million cedis.

Members of the committee have been probing issues of unbudgeted expenditure, failure to disburse statutory funds and other violations of the Financial Administration Act.

Joy FM’s parliamentary correspondent, Elton John Brobbey who has been monitoring proceedings at the committee’s sitting reports that although 316,000 cedis was approved for the National Commission for Civic Education in 2012, it however ended up spending 3.5 million cedis.

For the Ministry of Energy, they were supposed to spend 270 million cedis but spent as high as 746 million cedis in 2012.

The Controller and Accountant General also told the committee that the Ministry of Youth and Sports was allocated 46 million cedis, but overrun their budget, spending 253 million cedis instead.

An amount of 94.7 million was allocated for government machinery. They also overshot the allocated budget of 158 million cedis in 2012.

The Chieftaincy Ministry also spent about 450 percent more of the allocated budget under the Appropriation Bill.

Members queried Ms Grace Francisca Adzroe on why she did nothing while these institutions overspent far beyond their budget. According to her, she said the expenses were made in an election year, making it difficult for her to provide details to justify the amount spent.

However, the committee insisted that she provides an explanation latest by Thursday to justify the ballooning expenditures.

 

Listen to Ms Grace Francisca Adzroe at PAC