The Audit Service has organized a workshop for selected staff to undertake a special audit on on-site banking deployed by some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The workshop was aimed at introducing the auditors to the use of a software that had been developed for the special audit.

Speaking at the workshop, the Auditor-General (A-G), Mr. Daniel Yaw Domelevo, advised the auditors to be disciplined, professional, and discharge their duties with utmost care. The A-G reminded the auditors to submit detailed evidence of irregularities to enable him to issue a true and fair audit opinion.

A Deputy-Auditor General, Mr. George Swanzy Winful, informed the auditors that the project involved auditing accounts of monies collected by on-site banks on behalf of the MDAs for the financial years 2015 – 2019. He added that the MDAs contracted 16 commercial banks to collect and bank monies on their behalf. The audit is therefore to find out if the banks had properly accounted for all monies collected as required by the contractual agreement. It would also provide assurance on the effectiveness or otherwise of existing guidelines and the implementation of the banking arrangement and the extent of compliance to underlying terms and conditions by participating Commercial Banks.

The A-G commissioned this audit in line with Section 16 of the Audit Service Act, 2000 Act 584 which provides that the Auditor-General may in addition to the audit of public accounts, carry out in the public interest such special audits or reviews as he considers necessary and shall submit reports on the audits or review undertaken by him to Parliament.

The facilitators at the workshop took staff through the software for capturing data for the audit, some possible challenges to be encountered and how they were to be addressed. The facilitators also explained to the participants some controls in the software to ensure they captured accurate data.

The on-site banking at MDAs was part of the Government of Ghana (GoG) measures to improve Non-Tax Revenue. The Ministry of Finance (MoF) arranged with commercial banks to automate the revenue collection processes at selected MDAs. This process was to streamline the inefficiencies associated with the manual processes and to improve service delivery. The participating banks established collection facilities at dedicated points in the MDAs and paid the revenue collected into the Consolidated Fund.