The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has said the Auditor-General Daniel Yao Domelevo should learn to keep issues of national concern private and dialogue rather than always running to the public when issues come up.
According to Ken Ofori-Atta, since he assumed office as Finance Minister, there are a number of things he has learned but have had to bottle them up in order to help make his work smooth and easy while the issues are dealt with in private.
He was commenting on the Auditor-General’s clash with the Senior Minister on the work of Kroll and Associates.
“When I hear this issue, I feel shy. There was a problem at COCOBOD so we brought in these international investigators to investigate the matter and Senior Minister was responsible for that. Me, I don’t even understand the whole thing because what work were they doing that they were looking for evidence and all of a sudden, they had to be taken to court.”he told Peace FM.
“So, when the Auditor-General took the case and started handling it, the Senior Minister said how the evidence found by Kroll and Associates looks like, it’s not something that he can disclose to him so he should rather come to the office and have a look at the report.”
Explaining the work done by the International Investigative body and matters arising from their work, the Minister said “It’s a little bit shocking because the work the International company is doing was to look at value for money in a number of things that had happened at COCOBOD. When I gave Auditor-General’s Department this work, they said about six billion or so could not be validated. There were plenty of people to be surcharged on a local level most of whom would have been past government people so how come only that of COCOBOD when we started to investigate it has become a top-line issue of concern.”
“What was also worrisome is it also surcharged a number of civil servants in addition to that. So, with that, you create a certain unnecessary fear with how they do their work. I don’t know but I’m sure it will be resolved. They went to court and the Judge was quite clear that they should go and see the report and ascertain for themselves whether the work has been done.”
“Kwame, I don’t see why when we are engaged in our professional work there should be a bit of mutual respect and discuss things before we escalate it because things I’ve come to see at the Finance Ministry if I bring everything out, I wouldn’t have had the time to work. Some of the things it’s better to sit with the individuals and talk it over and resolve it so that the country can move forward. I hope that we will understand each other so that we can go forward”. The Minister concluded.
Source: My News GH