The Supreme Court judgment has given the Auditor-General a much-needed impetus to chase after monies stolen from the public purse and to recover those monies from the perpetrators.

Driven primarily by the wish to see Ghana on a better path, a legal battle commenced with a 12th November 2014 letter to the then Auditor-General, and culminated with the seminal judgment by the Supreme Court on 14th June 2017.

The judgment upheld our position that the Auditor-General should be compelled to exercise the power to disallow, surcharge and recover public monies.

By the last Auditor-General report from 30th November 2018, the exercise of this power to disallow since the judgment and the installation of this present Auditor-General in 2016 has saved Ghana the net total of GHS 5,445,676,134.53 (5.4 billion Ghana Cedis) - monies that some government officials fraudulently claimed was owed on various government contracts, but which had been already paid. Further, through his surcharging and recovery efforts, the Auditor-General has retrieved GHS 67,137,517.86 (67 million Ghana Cedis). There are currently further outstanding surcharges in excess of half a billion Ghana Cedis.

It is based on these successes that the Audit Service and OccupyGhana jointly present the first ever “Anniversary Lectures”.

These lectures, which we hope will become an annual event, will seek to explore the issues of safeguarding the public purse.

The theme of the first one is: “From Surcharging to Safeguarding: Next Steps in the Fight to Protect the Public Purse.”

Speakers include the Vice-President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the Auditor General, Mr. Daniel Domelevo, and our own Ace Ankomah.