PREZ DIRECTS MDAS TO SET UP AUDIT C'TTEES (PAGE 31)

The President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills, has directed ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to establish functional Audit Report Implementation Committees by the end of this year.
That is to ensure that all outstanding internal and external audit recommendations are implemented by the same period.
The President gave the directive in a speech read on his behalf by a Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Seth Tekper, at the 4th Annual Internal Audit Forum held in Accra yesterday.
The President also charged the Public Services Commission, the Head of the Civil Service and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to work together to ensure an effective performance management system in public and civil service.
In that regard, the President said all chief executives ought to ensure that performance agreements were also signed by all staff of MDAs and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) by March next year to ensure that national programme objectives were achieved with utmost efficiency.
Prof. Mills also ordered that periodic reports from the Public Services Commission, the office of the Head of the Civil Service and Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development on the performance of Chief Directors and Chief Executives, as well as other heads of MDAs and MMDAs, should reach his office.
He called on the Internal Audit Agency not to relent in its efforts at ensuring that public sector institutions met their performance targets through a continuous system of internal auditing of the public sector.
He deplored the situation where a number of heads of public institutions had not yet signed their performance agreements, and urged them to do so without further delay.
He commended the Internal Audit Agency (IAA) for setting a good example by ensuring that not only the directors but also the managers and assistant managers of the agency had signed their performance agreements and dared other public servants to emulate that example.
The President announced that a comprehensive salary and pension scheme related to performance was being worked out for public servants to improve condition of service, as well as rectify distortions in the current salary structure and make provision for comfortable retirement.
He said by early 2010, the single spine salary structure was expected to become operational, and there would no longer be a reason to excuse public servants for a lack of performance, absenteeism, misuse of public time and resources and low morale and poor remuneration.
Prof. Mills, therefore, urged the over 600 public and civil servants drawn from all the regions for the forum to devise strategies to implement the recommendations to bring about the desired change.
Mr Patrick Nomo, Director-General of IAA, said this year’s forum was aimed at ensuring that plans, goals and objectives of MDA’s and MMDAs were achieved with effectiveness and efficiency.
He said in the five years of the Internal Audit Agency’s work, some weaknesses had run through its findings in respect of MDAs and MMDAs reported in the agency’s annual report to the President.
Mr Nomo said these weaknesses included inadequate records management, poor accounting for revenues due and collected, as well as the improper use of internally generated funds and non-preparation of bank reconciliation statements.
The others, Mr Nomo said, were non-compliance with regulations and executive directives, inadequate safeguards and management of national assets, absence of structured risk management and inadequate financial accounting and reporting.