The Ministry of Food and Agriculture has assured that it has strengthened its internal mechanisms in dealing with the disposal of staff assets.
This follows the ministry’s encounter with the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament which revealed that the ministry and an auctioneer sold 24 state vehicles without due payment for 24 months, among other infractions.
Both ministry officials and the auctioneer admitted culpability when they appeared before the Committee.
The Minister of State for Agriculture, Dr. Nurah Gyeile spoke to Citi News about measures being taken to prevent such infractions from being repeated in future and indicated that Ministry will keep the auctioneers on a shorter leash.
“We take it [for granted] that the auctioneers know their jobs so when they come from the Chief of Staff, we assume that everything is okay so we just allow them to go around and do their job until the audit comes and these queries are coming up.”
“So what we have done is, before an auctioneer is left to go to the field, he must come for a total briefing from us and based on what has transpired here, we are going to exercise caution and take them through all the weaknesses in their system and tell them what could happen so that they will take more caution.”
“We must see the adverts before the auctions are done and that they followed due procedure,” Dr. Gyeile added.
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By: Duke Mensah Opoku/citifmonline.com/Ghana