More than 100 public institutions in six areas have been recommended to the Ghana Police Service for investigation and prosecution by Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
The institutions, according to the committee, had broken some procurement regulations highlighted in the 2018 Auditor-report. General's
Universities, district and municipal assemblies, and universities in the Bono, Northern, North East, Savannah, Upper West, and Upper East regions are among the institutions.
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Dr James Klutse Avedzi, the committee's chairman, said the committee was resolved to report institutions for prosecution, especially when it came to procurement violations, at the start of its meeting in Sunyani, Bono Region, last Monday.
"We have a lot of institutions in the five northern areas that we are submitting for prosecution." We will do the same thing in Sunyani. "By the time we've covered the entire nation, we'll have a long list of people to prosecute," he said.
He said the committee previously used a system in which it advised entities that violated the Auditor-report General's to go back and fix the problem.
It had realized, however, that those pieces of advise were not being taken seriously, therefore it had began to implement the legislation, according to Dr Avedzi.
"We will not prosecute them; we will propose that the Attorney-General and police take up the prosecution mandate," said the committee.
He emphasized that individuals found guilty would face the law, stating that procurement violations might result in a five-year prison sentence, a fine of up to GH30,000, or both.
"When the Attorney-General starts prosecuting them and some of them go to prison, it will act as a deterrence to others," Dr Avedzi said.
Hearing
The PAC session in Sunyani, which began on Monday, is scheduled to conclude on Saturday, April 30, 2022.
It is debating the Auditor-report General's on technical universities, second-cycle institutions, and assemblies in the Bono, Bono East, Ahafo, and Ashanti regions for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2018.
It noted difficulties such as the collecting of unauthorized school fees in its first session.