The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has stated that other public officials are abusing their powers by ordering expensive renovations to their official bungalows using scarce state resources.
The Executive Director of the GII, Vitus Azeem has thus suggested that the government should not leave the decision to renovate government bungalows to its prospective occupants.
[contextly_sidebar id=”q5hw0TwChidI9j5WjJ1AukkI8c0GmfDP”]The Commissioner of the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Lauretta Vivian Lamptey, has been accused of wasting thousands of dollars on a rented apartment and hotel accommodation following the renovation and redesign of her official residence which has been ongoing for the past three years.
She denied some of the allegations but also explained some of her decisions saying, her official residence was inhabitable and was already being renovated when she assumed office in 2011.
Ms Lamptey however denied ordering the renovation and redesigning of the bungalow.
Nonetheless, Vitus Azeem disclosed that CHRAJ is not the only state institution engaged in such practice.
“It is not only CHRAJ. It is happening everywhere. Ministers, District Chief Executives are also do the same thing…this is just not good. It’s a waste of state resources and there has to be a stop to it,” he said.
He said the situation is unfortunate considering the financial standing of the Commission.
“CHRAJ has always been complaining about not having adequate resources to carry out its operations…so one will expect that whatever little amount that the government is able to provide for them and that from the other donors should be put to effective use,” he complained.
He continued saying, “we find it strange that the renovation of a house that should cost about GHC 180,000, in place of that, you spend three years rent in place of that bungalow. We think that that is not a really good use of resources and such things should be addressed.”
Azeem recommended that there should be measures in place to ensure that “you speed up the renovation process so that the officer can move into her duty post. It should be ready within three months after somebody has vacated the place for somebody else to come in so that all these cost should be avoided
He also advocated for a professional person to be hired to access government bungalows and make subsequent requests for renovations to be made.
According to him, public officers should not be made to determine which kinds of renovations should be made to bungalows they are to occupy.
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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