Records of the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA), some dating back to 2002, were destroyed when fire gutted parts of the authority\u2019s head office in Accra.<\/p>\n
The incident took place a day ahead of an Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) forensic audit into the operations of the authority.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”IrqrlfKKEbzQqw4QORWdihulHQxjsuBm”]Fire gutted the finance department of the GMA last Wednesday, destroying every document and leaving the institution with no financial records in hard copies.<\/p>\n
No backup<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, we do not have a backup of what we lost and the authority has all this while been keeping records manually,\u201d the Director-General of the GMA, Kwame Owusu, confirmed to the Daily Graphic on Tuesday.<\/p>\n He explained that a team from EOCO was at the GMA to begin a preliminary forensic audit, but the fire incident occurred on the eve of the scheduled date (last Thursday) for the full audit.<\/p>\n He said investigations were underway to establish the cause of the fire and until then, he could not conclude whether the incident was arson to cover up malfeasance.<\/p>\n The authority<\/strong> It is headed by a director-general with a 13-member governing board, made up mainly of institutional representatives from key maritime agencies.<\/p>\n Mr Owusu, who assumed office in March this year, said he took over an institution in dire financial straits.<\/p>\n Millions lost<\/strong> He posited that the financial immodesty found expression in the expenditure of the authority which far exceeded its income.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ideas I am bringing here are re-engineering and cost cutting. Things are now getting better and there is a lot we can do,\u201d Mr Owusu said.<\/p>\n Monitoring<\/strong> He, therefore, noted that he would champion an effort to procure more surveillance equipment and patrol boats to secure the country\u2019s waters.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: Daily Graphic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Records of the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA), some dating back to 2002, were destroyed when fire gutted parts of the authority\u2019s head office in Accra. The incident took place a day ahead of an Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) forensic audit into the operations of the authority. [contextly_sidebar id=”IrqrlfKKEbzQqw4QORWdihulHQxjsuBm”]Fire gutted the finance department of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":358924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,11],"tags":[372,373,3],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe GMA was established by an Act of Parliament (Act 630 of 2002) with the responsibility of monitoring, regulating and coordinating activities in the maritime industry.<\/p>\n
\nThe director-general said the authority, in 2016, lost GH\u00a27 million as a result of financial impropriety, citing the lack of prudent financial management as responsible for the situation.<\/p>\n
\nOn how effectively the authority was monitoring the country\u2019s territorial waters, Mr Owusu expressed concern that the GMA, since its inception, had no patrol boats to monitor territorial waters.<\/p>\n