Public Accounts C’ttee surcharges two ministers for no-show at public sitting

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has surcharged the Works and Housing, as well as the Roads and Highways Minister, for failing to appear before them without any notice.

The two ministers are to incur the cost of organising the day’s aborted sitting.

The meeting had been for the committee to consider the financial activities of the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for the financial year, ending December 2017.

The Deputy Minority Leader and Member of Parliament for Ketu North James Klutse Avedzi, who chairs the PAC, also ruled that the two ministries bear the cost of the day’s live broadcast of the sitting on national television and media coverage.

The public media coverage is aimed at bringing the committee’s work closer to the public and making it one of the most popular committees of Parliament.

This is to serve as a deterrent to others who would fail to appear before the committee and take the work of the committee seriously.

The Chairman said, “We have written to the ministries to appear before the committee, we did not get feedback from them about their unavailability.

As usual, anytime we write to them, once we do not get any feedback to indicate that the ministry will not be available, the assumption is that they will appear before us.”

He expressed worry, indicating that some officials of the two ministries did not even pick the calls, while others also picked and said they were in a different programme.

“These two ministries did not take the work of this committee and, for that [the] Parliament of Ghana, serious. This is the decision; the cost that parliament incurred for organising this sitting must be borne by the two ministries,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Accounts Section of the lawmaking assembly will compute the costs involved, and the ministers will formally be surcharged in due time.

Klutse reiterated that Standing Order 165 of Parliament assigns to the Public Accounts Committee the examination of the audited accounts showing the appropriation of funds granted by Parliament to the government.

According to him, the PAC aside from the Committee on Subsidiary Legislation is the only committee of the house chaired by a member from the Minority, that is charged with the prerogative to scrutinise properly, the audited accounts of government institutions.

The two ministers have been summoned again to appear before a public hearing today, June 25, to answer questions relating to their respective Ministries.

The committee has since reminded erring institutions that Article 103 (6) grants the Committee, like any other Committee of Parliament, the powers, rights and privileges of a High Court, thereby giving them the power to enforce the attendance of witnesses and examining them on oath, affirmation or otherwise.