Eric Oduro Osae, the director general of the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), has given health institutions the task of implementing steps to get rid of violations and anomalies in their financial management.
He implied that internal financial control procedures in the health sector were deficient by claiming that 52 pages of the 212-page 2021 Auditor-General's report were devoted to institutions in the sector.
Dr. Osae added that most of the over GH1 billion in violations found in the Auditor-General's report for 2021 were in medical institutions.
At the inauguration of 21 zonal audit committees for health sector institutions under the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in the Bono, Bono East, and Ahafo regions, Dr. Osae issued the warning in a speech delivered on his behalf.
Frank Amedume, the IAA's Deputy Head of Special Investigations, read his address.
Therefore, he added, the creation of audit committees was a move intended to promote value for money by boosting internal control systems in public institutions, including the health sector.
The Public Financial Management (PFM) Act, 2016 (Act 921), was passed to control risks and decrease the detrimental consequences of financial irregularities on national growth, and Dr. Osae claims that this was one of the requirements.
He stated that the Internal Audit Agency expects financial irregularities to be avoided by internal auditors with assistance from audit committees for internal audit units inside their organizations.
Dr. Osae continued by saying that while audit committees were crucial to institutional governance, they needed the support of management and other stakeholders to fulfill their mandate.
a scarcity of funds
Dr. Boakye Boateng, the Ahafo Regional Director of Health, stated that Section 88 of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016 (Act 921) placed a duty on audit committee members to pursue the implementation of all recommendations made in an internal audit report and the decisions made by Parliament regarding the Auditor General's report, among other things.
He clarified that the audit committees' inability to function during the previous few years in health care was mostly attributable to inadequate finance for the committees' operations.
Dr. Kofi Amo-Kodieh, the Bono Regional Director of Health, urged committee members to act courageously in order to accomplish what was right under Act 921, the Public Financial Management Act.
The GHS's Eric Boateng Frimpong, Director of Internal Audit, explained that the zoning of the committees required members to deal with more facilities and tasked them with putting in more effort to cover all institutions within their purview.He advised leaders of healthcare organizations to make sure that the audit committees have access to all necessary reports in order to simplify their work.
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