Auditor-General's COVID-19 Report Under Fire Over Missing Local Government Spending Data

Investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni has raised serious questions about the completeness of the Auditor-General's special COVID-19 expenditure audit, after discovering that the Ministry of Local Government's substantial fumigation spending was excluded from the final report despite being audited.

Speaking on Joy News' PM Express, Mr Awuni revealed that while the Audit Service's official report cited GH¢96.3 million in total fumigation expenditure, his own investigation uncovered that the Ministry of Local Government alone spent GH¢299 million on three phases of market fumigation between April and November 2020. The ministry had submitted this expenditure data to the Auditor-General during the audit process, yet it did not appear in the published report.

How the Omission Came to Light

Mr Awuni obtained documentary confirmation directly from the Audit Service that the Ministry of Local Government was included in the audit scope. In correspondence with the journalist, the Audit Service provided an appendix listing all ministries covered by the COVID-19 expenditure review, and specifically confirmed that Local Government's spending—including fumigation costs—had been audited. When pressed on why the ministry's figures were absent from the final report, the Audit Service stated that omission from the report did not necessarily mean the expenditure had not been audited.

This explanation, however, intensified the controversy. The Auditor-General's report had provided a precise national figure for fumigation costs, raising the logical question: if auditors reviewed the Local Government Ministry's GH¢299 million fumigation bill and included it in their audit work, why was such a substantial portion of national COVID-19 spending excluded from the reported total?

The Audit's Own Objectives Create the Problem

At the heart of Mr Awuni's criticism is the Auditor-General's stated purpose for conducting the COVID-19 audit. According to the audit objectives, the exercise was designed not merely to investigate fraud or misappropriation, but to provide a fair and complete representation of how much money Ghana received and spent during the pandemic response.

"The audit objectives included determining whether the financial records fairly represented COVID-19 receipts and expenditure," Mr Awuni explained. This broader mandate—to give citizens an accurate picture of pandemic spending—makes the omission of an entire ministry's GH¢299 million expenditure particularly problematic. If the Audit Service examined the Local Government Ministry's records and confirmed the figures, their inclusion in the report would have been essential to fulfilling the audit's own stated purpose of transparency and completeness.

Mr Awuni noted that the discrepancy suggests a gap between the audit's declared objectives and its execution. "They wanted to show: 'We took this much as a nation for COVID-19, and this is how much we spent,' " he said. "So if you have huge figures spent by whole ministries totally omitted, I don't think this response was so satisfactory."

Why This Matters for Ghana

This controversy touches on fundamental issues of public accountability and fiscal transparency in Ghana. The COVID-19 pandemic response involved substantial sums of public money, and citizens have a right to know how those funds were deployed. An official audit that omits significant portions of government spending—even if those omissions are technically documented elsewhere—undermines public trust in financial accountability mechanisms.

The case also highlights a broader governance challenge: the gap between an institution's stated mandate and its actual practice. When an audit is commissioned specifically to give a fair account of national spending, the credibility of that exercise depends on comprehensiveness. The Auditor-General's office must clarify whether this omission was procedural, intentional, or the result of classification decisions, and provide the public with the complete picture of COVID-19 expenditure it committed to deliver.

• Auditor-General's report showed GH¢96.3 million in fumigation costs nationally
• Local Government Ministry alone spent GH¢299 million on fumigation, April-November 2020
• Audit Service confirmed ministry was audited but figures omitted from final report