Nine months after the Chief Justice, Georgina Theodora Woode, established five Financial Administration Courts across the country, citifmonline.com has gathered that, the courts have not recorded a single case.
In February 2014, pursuant to the Financial Administration Act,2003 (Act 654), the Chief Justice set up two Financial Administration Courts in Accra and one each in Kumasi, Sekondi and Tamale as a Division of the High Court.
The Judicial Service said this in a statement copied to citifmonline.com after, a Member of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), George Loh, called on the Chief Justice to fast track the establishment of Financial Tribunals to deal with corrupt public office holders.
His call was on the back of revelations made by the PAC in the three regions of the North, that some Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) misused public funds meant for developmental projects.
He said corruption was pervasive especially in the MMDAs hence the need to create such tribunals to deal with them.
[contextly_sidebar id=”BYV9ywb8SILMXzlzUmLxvDhxVjpgFwGo”]But the Judicial Service’s Director of Communications, Grace A. Tagoe, said the call by the MP “has come a bit too late,” because such courts are already in existence.
It also added that “The Kumasi Court is addressing the needs of the Ashanti/Brong Ahafo Regions while that of Sekondi and Tamale are serving the Western/Central Regions and the three regions of the North respectively.”
In a related development, the Chief Justice also in 2009 established the Financial and Economic Crimes Court to hear cases arising from the Auditor General’s Report but laments “regrettably, not a single case of this nature was brought to the court, two of which were located in Accra and a third in Kumasi.”
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin