Ghana’s Parliament under the distinguished Speaker of the Eight Parliament, Rt Hon Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin has been adjudged the best among the three arms of Government in terms of the performance of its Audit Committee.
This was announced by Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency Dr. Eric Osae, in a short ceremony to present the award to the Speaker, Board and Management of the Parliamentary Service in Parliament House.
He explained that, this award is for the Audit Committees of the three arms of Government, the Legislature, Executive and the Judiciary. And of all the three, the criteria include the Heads of the three arms of Government meeting with the Audit Committees, Audit Committees working with Management to implement recommendations from internal audit report and external audit report, and capacity building for the internal auditors, internal audit committee. The committee realized that, of all the three arms of Government, Parliament passed all of them because the Speaker who heads the Parliament met the Audit Committee not once, not twice, but thrice in a particular year.
“Apart from that, he insists on getting the Clerk to Parliament to implement recommendations. The Clerk and the Deputy Clerks were always implementing recommendations and they have improved the control systems and financial management system of the organization if you compare to the three arms of Government. So then we realized that they are up there”. He added.
He further added that, prior to this, last year, the Rt Hon. Speaker himself was awarded for being an exemplary leader who is injecting financial discipline in the management of the funds of the Parliamentary Service. “So it came as no surprise when they were the best among the three arms of Government in terms of audit committee management”.
Mr. Speaker in his acceptance remarks was full of gratitude to the team. He indicated that, this has been a big challenge since in the past Parliament did not have this Committee in place which he believes in a good tool for good governance. According to him, it was the right way to go so that Parliament which exercises its oversight responsibility would be seen to be doing the right thing and hinted that Parliament is going lay for the first time its annual reports including the audit reports of Parliament for 2021, 2022 and 2023.This will be a remarkable improvement. It will be the first of its kind. And we look forward to delaying it. And once that happens, we’ll be among the best in Africa as far as financial and fiscal transparency is concerned.
He called on management to put in place mechanism to ensure that, successive Speakers keeps this initiative going since it is one of the surest ways of preventing wilful wastage and financial malfeasance.
On his side, the Clerk to Parliament commended the IAA for their support and guidance to the Parliamentary Service. He added that, this feat couldn’t have been achieved without the instrumentality and interest of the Rt,Hon Speaker and therefore promised that Management would strive to adhere to good corporate governance.
The Audit Committee of the Parliamentary Service is made up of representatives the Internal Audit Agency, Mr. Fiifi Kwakye, Chairman, Dr. Eric Osae, Member, representative of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana, Dr. Cynthia Sallah, Member, Representing Parliament is the Dep. Clerk to Parliament, Mr. Ebenezer Ahumah Djietror, Member, the Coordinating Director-Finance, Mr. Daniel Chirawura-Member and Director of Legal, Nana Tawiah Okyir, Secretary.
Source:Mybrytfmonline.com/Kwabena Nyarko Abronoma
