PAC Vice Chair Defends Audit Report as COVID Fumigation Spending Row Deepens

Parliament's Public Accounts Committee Vice Chairperson Davis Ansah Opoku has pushed back against calls for arrests over alleged discrepancies in the Auditor-General's COVID-19 spending audit, saying investigators must first establish why expenditure from key ministries was excluded from the report.

The Mpraeso MP's comments come after investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni revealed a significant gap between the Auditor-General's reported COVID-19 fumigation spending of GH¢96.3 million and ministry documents pointing to at least GH¢780 million spent on similar activities across education, local government and transport sectors.

The Scale of the Discrepancy

The investigation uncovered what appears to be a substantial variance in how COVID-19 fumigation costs were documented. The Auditor-General's special audit captured GH¢96.3 million in fumigation expenditure, identified as specifically relating to Ghana Education Service activities. However, documents from the Ministries of Local Government and Transport suggested far greater spending had occurred on fumigation programmes—a difference of over GH¢680 million that warrants explanation.

Mr Ansah Opoku acknowledged that the audit report lacked detailed coverage of local government and transport fumigation activities, recognising gaps that have raised public concern about transparency in pandemic-related spending. Nevertheless, he cautioned against premature conclusions, noting that the GH¢96.3 million figure should not be misinterpreted as the total COVID-19 fumigation expenditure reported.

Why It Matters for Ghana

COVID-19 spending accountability remains a critical issue for Ghanaians, particularly given the scale of public resources mobilised during the pandemic. Any discrepancies between ministry records and audit findings strike at the heart of public financial management and raise questions about oversight mechanisms that are essential for rebuilding taxpayer confidence.

The PAC Vice Chair's insistence on due process reflects institutional caution, but also highlights a procedural challenge: determining whether omissions from an audit report represent genuine oversights requiring investigation or legitimately audited activities with no identified infractions. Mr Ansah Opoku stressed that the Auditor-General is not obligated to report every audited item if no irregularities are detected.

For Ghanaians tracking pandemic spending, this dispute signals that full transparency may require more than the standard audit process. The missing figures from Local Government and Transport ministries—totalling potentially hundreds of millions of cedis—represent funds that deserve clear accounting and public scrutiny.

Next Steps in the Investigation

Mr Ansah Opoku called on the Audit Service to explain specifically why Local Government and Transport ministry expenditure was not included in the audit report, and to provide the actual figures involved. He indicated the PAC would then conduct its own examination of those figures.

His position effectively places the burden on the Audit Service to clarify its methodology and justify the boundaries of its investigation. The PAC's role would shift to verifying whatever explanations and figures emerge from that clarification process.

The unfolding situation underscores ongoing challenges in pandemic financial accountability across West Africa, where similar questions have arisen in multiple countries. For Ghana specifically, it reinforces the need for robust secondary oversight mechanisms when audit reports appear incomplete or raise unanswered questions about significant public expenditure.