The Auditor-General of Ghana, Dr. Pamela Graham has disclosed that the Audit Service has recovered over GH¢18 billion from 2022 to date as a result of its auditing work. Additionally, the Service saved that nation GH¢11.7 billion in wrongful payments in 2025.
Dr. Graham made this disclosure at the 6th Conference of the African Organisation of Public Accounts Committees (AFROPAC) and General Meeting in Accra. She therefore counselled the various Public Accounts Committees to “move beyond reporting audit findings to ensuring that recommendations are implemented fully” to bring about solutions.
Dr. Graham expressed concern about the generally low rate of implementation of audit recommendations across Africa. According to her, Ghana's Ministry of Finance 2024 Consolidated Ministries, Departments and other Agencies (MDAs) Report showed that only 41.8 percent of recommendations to 21 MDAs were fully implemented. In South Africa, 31 per cent of audit recommendations were implemented in 2024/25, while Morocco's Court of Accounts reported 18 per cent implementation rate out of a total of 300 recommendations. Only Rwanda reported 65 per cent implementation of audit recommendations in 2025.
She noted that public sector accounting and parliamentary oversight could be effective if policy makers look beyond recurring findings, and rather seek to understand the underlying causes, anticipate emerging risks and improve collaboration among key players in the chain of accountability to prevent the weaknesses identified in public financial management from recurring annually.
Dr. Pamela stated that budget approved by Parliament represented a promise to citizens, authorizing the mobilisation and use of public resources on their behalf. To that end, accountability depended on a strong chain; accurate accounting, reliable reporting, independent audit assurance, effective PAC scrutiny and follow-up action. “Each link matters. If the records are unreliable, the reports will be weak. If audit findings are not examined and acted upon, the whole process loses its value”, she stated.
She therefore advised the PAC members not to view financial audits as historic, detective instruments, but rather a critical tool to strengthen governance and accountability since audits provide strategic intelligence to help future internal controls and policy formulation. She said, “the ultimate objective is for yesterday’s accountability findings to help shape tomorrow’s financial decisions and policies”.
The theme for the 6th AFROPAC Conference and General Meeting is “Oversight for resilience: strengthening Africa’s Public Accounts Committees amid a shifting financial landscape.” The Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana, Rt. Hon. Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin opened the Conference and called on the PAC of the various African Parliaments to confront the turbulent economic situation, mounting public debt, and recurring geopolitical shocks in order to bring relieve and real development to their citizens. He said, “sustainable resilience cannot be gifted from abroad rather it must be constructed from within, in the face of the economic challenges”.
Other speakers at the opening ceremony were Hon. Dr. Godfred Seidu Jasaw, who represented the Majority leader of Parliament, Minority leader of Parliament, the Hon. Alexander Afenyo Markin, the Deputy Finance Minister, Hon. Thomas Nyarko Ampem, and Mr. Ebenezer Ahumah Djietror, Clerk to the Parliament of Ghana.
