Dodowa, 9 Sept. GNA - A report released by Messrs Ernst and Young, a chartered accountancy firm, after auditing some selected government institutions, has revealed that most of the organizations are characterised by the lack of procurement and audit units, poor filing system, absence of receipts for payments made, with subvention from central government not captured.

"The audit also came across situations that showed non-compliance with prescribed control procedures or adherence to good public financial management practice," it said.

Some of the agencies involved were the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Ministry of Works and Housing, Rural Housing Department, Ghana Immigration Service, Tema Metropolitan Assembly, Public Works Department, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ministry of Roads and Highways, and the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice.

Delivering the report to representatives of the institutions on Wednesday, Mr. Nelson Alomatu, a Deputy Auditor General at the Central Government Audit Department, said the auditing was conducted to ascertain how donations from multilateral organizations were utilized. "Government and donors have taken this stance in order to ensure regularity in public financial management and also make sure that some selected areas of utilization of their funds are audited and reported on," he said.

He said auditing conducted into the financial affairs of some 20 district assemblies in the Greater Accra Region also revealed instances of improper preparation of financial statements, late or non-submission of annual accounts, unaccounted for advances and imprests, and the absence of procurement plans.

Mr. Alomatu added that the situations enumerated above point to weaknesses in the control procedures designed to ensure transparency and accountability, and that such acts of omission and commission whether advertent or inadvertent, did not augur well for the development agenda of the government.

The Deputy Director urged all public officers to aspire to gain a broad based knowledge of rules and regulations governing the usage of government funds in order to ensure an improvement in the nation's financial management processes.

Mr. Alomatu said the auditing for all the institutions and district assemblies were carried out between 2006 and 2007. Mr. Fred Ohene, Assistant Auditor General in charge of Planning Research, Monitoring and Evaluation said the Multi-Donor Budget support (MDBS) programme which started in 2003 was aimed at providing the government with adequate resources to enable it to finance its developmental projects.

"At present, financial support to the MDBS comes from a group of nine bilateral and multilateral development partners, and contributions for 2006 and 2007 amounted to approximately 121,263,000 Ghana cedis and 206,922,000 Ghana Cedis respectively", he stated.