Director of Advocacy and Policy Engagement, CDD-Ghana, Dr. Kojo Pumpuni Asante, has indicated his organisation’s resolve to resist any attempt by the Attorney-General to amend the Audit Service Act.
This follows the Attorney-General, Godfred Yeboah Dame, describing the publication of the covid-19 audit report as premature and unconstitutional.
He argues that the report should have been discussed by parliament or a committee of it before being released to the general public.
He had thus advised the Auditor-General, Johnson Akuamoah to unpublish the document.
In reaction, civil society organisations had described the A-G’s advice as tantamount to interference in the work of the Auditor-General and further stated that his interpretation of the law is egregious and inimical to holding the executive accountable.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, the Deputy Attorney General, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah noted that the Office of the Attorney General is convinced the Audit Service Act – which permits the Auditor-General to publish reports immediately after presenting it to the Speaker – is inconsistent with the provision of the 1992 constitution and thus an amendment will be in the right direction.
“We will be looking at it and take the necessary steps. If you take that provision, you may have to look at all the other laws, look at the constitutional provision and see how best it could be…because if you look at that section, it’s not saying it cannot be published but it should be published after parliament so there’s the need for an amendment in fact, just to make sure that it’s in tune with the constitutional provision,” he said.
However, reacting to this, Dr. Pumpuni Asante noted that if that is the case, then CDD Ghana will resist the move with all it has got.
“We will equally resist it with everything that we can to resist it because the more we get into the challenges that we have gotten into, we have to work very hard to strengthen accountability systems. This is not a welcome intervention, and if the Attorney General insists that he wants to go this way then we’ll all work very hard to resist it,” he said.
