Daily Heritage June 16

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HERITAGE FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 2017
Help me retrieve looted state
cash – Auditor-General
BY MOHAMMED AWAL
THE AUDITOR-
GENERAL (AG),
Daniel Domelevo
has called for the
backing of Ghanaians
as he prepares
to recover every penny siphoned
from state coffers.
His appeal came barely 24
hours after a seven-member panel
of the Supreme Court ruled on
Wednesday ordering him to immediately
initiate process of surcharging
any person found to have
misappropriated state funds.
Also, the panel headed by
Ghana’s Chief Justice, Justice
Sophia Akuffo directed that where
applicable, criminal action should
be instituted against the accused
persons by the country’s Attorney
General.
Declaring his readiness to recoup
the monies looted from the
state yesterday on Morning Starr,
which pressure group, Occupy
• Daniel Domelevo, the Auditor-General
Ghana said is well over GH¢ 40
billion, Mr Domelevo appealed to
all and sundry to come on board.
According to him, the task
ahead is an arduous one and that
he is oblivious of the amount of
evidence that will be required “before
we can do the surcharge.”
“So let me say that I am happy
you say Occupy Ghana has a figure
which I know of. It is not just Auditor
General, it a collective responsibility.
I’ll appeal to Occupy
Ghana and all Ghanaians to let us
do this together,” he pleaded.
He continued “if you have any
evidence to support it, because
what is written in the audit report
you may have to go back to the
first document and establish that…
this is the evidence because people
will challenge our disallowance and
surcharge and that will go to court.
“If we go to court we must
provide the evidence. So I’ll appeal
to Occupy Ghana and Ghanaians
that it is a collective responsibility
to protect the public funds which is
in the interest of all of us.”
We’re coming
for our cash
He said with the backing of the
Ghanaian populace nothing will
discourage him from executing the
Supreme Court’s order to the letter
and that “wherever there is outright
embezzlement of state funds,
we will go for it.”
This, he explained extends to
private entities and individuals
found to have siphoned the state’s
coffers.
The ruling, he said is resounding
giving great clarity to the provisions
of the constitution.
Hitherto, there were two
schools of thought; one school
was of the view that as longs the
Auditor General produces the annual
report to Parliament and mentioned
in there infractions and
irregularities in financial management
that was enough…which is
the old school.”
“However, there is another
school of thought which I belong
to which is of the view that the
constitution is very clear that in the
course of the audit, if you come
across any expenditure which is
contrary to law it must be disallowed
and whoever is responsible
to be held accountable.”
The Supreme Court ruling was
necessitated by an action instituted
against the Attorney General and
Auditor General by pressure group
Occupy Ghana for refusing to surcharge
persons who are said to
have misappropriated monies belonging
to the state to the tune of
over GH¢ 40 billion.
3 months Jail term for false fire Alarmists
BY EDWARD ADETI
JUST ONE wrong move of deliberately
calling the attention of firemen
to a false fire outbreak anywhere in
Ghana will earn you a minimum of
one-month jail term or a maximum of
three-months if caught, government
has announced.
The notice, contained in the latest
Local Governance Act 936, 2016, was
made public this week when the
Upper East Regional Coordinating
Council called stakeholders together
at Bolgatanga, the regional capital, to
sensitise them on some new developments
inside the local governance law
book.
“A person who knowingly or without
lawful authority gives or causes to
be given a false alarm of fire commits
an offence and is liable on summary
conviction to a fine of not less than
one hundred and twenty-five penalty
units and not more than one hundred
fifty penalty units or to a term of imprisonment
of not less than one
month and not more than three
months or to both the fine and term
of imprisonment,” the Act states.
Among the participants were municipal
and district coordinating directors,
presiding members, senior staff
at the coordinating council and representatives
of civil society organisations
in the region.
False fire callers too many in
Upper East
Checks done the Upper East Regional
Headquarters of the Ghana
National Fire Service (GNFS) immediately
after the sensitisation programme
revealed that the
headquarters receives at least three
anonymous false alarm calls every
two-months.
“We have a lot of contact lines to
those false alarm callers. We’ve gone
to the offices of the network service
providers to track them but they
asked us to pass through the police.
The police also say they are also experiencing
those things. They (the false
alarm callers) call them that there is
an armed robbery incident here or
there; you go and there is nothing.
Most of them call at midnight,” the
Deputy Regional Commander, DOI
Ebenezer Mensah, told Starr News.
He stated further: “It has been so
for a long time. It has serious effects
on us. Even fuel alone. We fill the
tank to our fire engine with fuel- and
the tank in the ambulance, because always
we go with ambulance in case of
casualties. The most recent one was
when we received a call that there was
fire around the Timber Market (near
Zuarungu). We combed everywhere
that night for hours and it turned out
that it was a false alarm.”
Meanwhile, development watchers
have remarked that the penalty cited
in the new Act 936 is “not punitive
enough” to discourage such deceitful
calls.
Participants held deliberations on
the new Act
• A cross section of the stakeholders at the programme
New law exempts Private
Cemeteries from Property Rate
The omission of private cemeteries
in the new Act with regard to the
collection of property rate attracted a
sharp attack from the Assistant Dean
of Studies and Research at the Institute
of Local Government Studies,
Abdul-Moomen Salia, who facilitated
the programme alongside the Upper
East Regional Coordinating Director,
Alhaji Abdulai Abubakar.
“The law says schools, hospitals,
cemeteries are exempted. For me, it
raises an issue. Cemeteries in other
areas are big businesses. We now have
people operating private cemeteries.
And the number of years the grave
stays there depends on how much
you are willing to pay.
“These are private people, who
are operating the cemetery business,
making income. I think that we
should look at that law. If we are talking
about public cemetery, it’s agreed.
If somebody is operating a private
cemetery, you shouldn’t exempt that
person whilst he or she is making
profits,” Mr Salia strongly stated.
Upper East Regional Coordinating
Director, Alhaji Abdulai Abubakar,
asked municipal and district coordinating
directors to adopt the new Act
as their ‘Holy Scriptures.’
His position on the property tax
was backed by former Upper East Regional
Economic Planning Officer,
Issaka Sagito, who said “private
schools are now businesses and they
make big money. “And I don’t think
they even pay any income tax. If you
start a private school in a room, in the
next three years you would see a
storey building financed by the Parent
Teacher Association. All the buildings
are all from parents but in the end
they are the property of the owner of
the school.”
Whilst making a presentation on
“Financial Matters of District Assemblies”,
the Chief Internal Auditor at
the coordinating council, Daniel
Atompoya, observed that despite a
significant rise in the number of private
buildings put up in recent times
across the region, the assemblies still
looked bankrupt as they had failed to
stand firm on their demand for the