COVID-19 Audit Discrepancies Could Be Fourth Republic's Greatest Financial Scandal - Dafeamekpor

​South Dayi Member of Parliament and Majority Chief Whip, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor, has cautioned that the ongoing fallout over concealed findings in the Auditor-General’s COVID-19 expenditure report could rank as the single greatest public finance scandal of Ghana's Fourth Republic if the claims are verified. Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express, the lawmaker demanded immediate law enforcement action and arrests should investigators confirm that key spending details were intentionally omitted from the official report presented to the legislature. His comments follow a damning exposé by investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni, which raised serious doubts about the integrity and completeness of the state’s special audit into pandemic-era disbursements.

​The core of the controversy centers on massive financial discrepancies between the figures submitted to Parliament and actual departmental spending. While the official Auditor-General’s special audit report captured GH¢96 million as total COVID-19 fumigation expenses, investigative documents uncover that government ministries actually executed spending hundreds of millions of cedis higher than reported. Specifically, the Ministry of Local Government alone signed three separate fumigation contracts totaling approximately GH¢299 million an astronomical outlay completely missing from the final aggregated sum presented to the nation's oversight bodies. Although the Ghana Audit Service acknowledged that the ministry's transactions were indeed audited, it has offered no public explanation as to why these multi-million cedi allocations failed to reflect in the final submission. 

​Highlighting the legal implications of the suppression, Dafeamekpor emphasized that the Auditor-General operates under strict statutory obligations that prohibit withholding material facts from Parliament. Section 16 of the Audit Service Act obligates the Auditor-General to lay the complete, unadulterated findings and recommendations of any special audit directly before lawmakers. Dafeamekpor asserted that the documentary evidence compiled by Manasseh Azure Awuni points irresistibly toward an intentional omission of facts, depriving Parliament of the opportunity to scrutinize critical data, demand accountability, and enact legislative reforms.

​In response to the growing public outrage, Dafeamekpor revealed he is contemplating issuing a formal statement on the floor of Parliament to force a comprehensive investigation into the audit process itself. He reiterated that the integrity of the nation's public financial management system is at stake if public bodies tasked with accountability actively obscure audit trails. Calling for swift accountability, he insisted that any officials found complicit in manipulating public records or suppressing critical audit findings must face full legal prosecution and immediate arrest.

Credit: Joy Online