It has emerged that the Auditor General erred in his report that said an amount of over 45 million cedis was expended on procurement activities in 2019 by management of the Bolgatanga Technical University.
The 2019 audited report which has been published on the website of the Auditor General’s department said “our audit revealed that the Polytechnic has a one-man procurement unit responsible for all procurement activities. For the year 2019 the Polytechnic procured goods and services to the value of GH¢45,355,000.00 through the one-man unit”.
The report further stated that the Technical University did not have a well-established procurement unit headed by qualified procurement personnel.
“The situation has resulted in deploying accounts and budget officers to assist in the procurement process which in our view do not offer adequate control in procurement and payment process,” the report added.
But reacting to the report in an interview on Dreamz fm’s State of Our Nation, the Vice Chancellor of the University Prof. Samuel Erasmus Alnaa explained that the over 45 million cedis quoted in the Auditor General report was in complete error on the part of the AG with additional zeros added to the figure, therefore ballooning it from an actual expended GH¢ 45, 335.00 to GH¢45,355,000.00.
“There was a constriction on employment for some time now and so it was actually difficult for us to get the number of staff to represent the procurement directorate. However, recently we have gotten clearance to recruit to do that, but the amount involved has been erroneously overstated. I think they just added another zero to it. The amount involved is Ghc 45, 335.00. It will even take ten years of our allocation but we will still not get 45 million cedis,” he said.
Prof. Alnaa stressed that “can you imagine all the Technical Universities spending 48 million cedis and Bolgatanga Technical University alone spending 45 million cedis? That is too serious. Where are getting that money? Even if you add all our salaries and all others together including GETfund allocation, School fees and all; you won’t still get that 45 million cedis over even 5 years”.
He indicated that in a response to the report, the attention of the AG has been drawn to the error.
