The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), has been indicted in the Auditor General’s report for blowing GHc99, 663 on the distribution of Christmas hampers.
According to the report, the amount was expended on such items “during the 2012 Christmas and New Year break.”
“We observed that the amount of GHc99, 663 for the purchase of the hampers was not retired or adjusted to the personal advance account of the imprest holder, instead the entire amount was expended at the end of the year in violation of the provisions of FAR 288. This was due to the absence of a mechanism in place to ensure that such advances were retired promptly,” the report added.
[contextly_sidebar id=”XsB08wZ6vIaVyUFptDuETXQSz4DCxf4J”]The Auditor General further recommended that “management should put in place mechanism to ensure that advances are retired promptly.”
It is common practice in Ghana for individuals and companies to distribute hampers loaded with gifts to their friends, business associates, customers and people in authority during the festive season.
Critics say such profligate expenditures overburden the national purse especially when the country’s economy has been struggling.
The late President John Atta Mills in 2009, ordered the various ministries to desist from using state resources to purchase such Christmas hampers and gifts, something he believed contributed to the high levels of corruption.
President John Dramani Mahama also in 2013 further extended the directive to cover departments and agencies.
A letter from the Presidency asked the MDAs to ensure strict compliance with the directive at all levels of government, adding that “Heads of MDAs which flout the directive would be surcharged with the cost of same to serve as a deterrent to others.”
The recipients of the PURC hampers are not yet known, neither is the company that made them.
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana