Accra, Aug. 2, GNA - Inadequate or lack of internal financial controls continue to stand out as major lapses and irregularities in the statutory roles of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the Auditor-General's Report for 2001 has noted. These lapses resulted in a financial loss of 294.43 million cedis during the year, the report said.

A copy of the Report the Ghana News Agency received on Tuesday cited other problems as administering payrolls, managing cash, imprest, loans, debts and collecting taxes on behalf of the revenue agencies. The Auditor-General subsequently called on the MDAs to recover the amounts outstanding as early as possible and urged them not to hesitate to take legal action where appropriate.

The Report said the audit indicated that the Internal Revenue Service, Customs, Excise and Preventive Service and the VAT Service experienced problems in efficiently administering their revenue collection tasks due to lack of supervision over schedule officers and the absence of effective debt collection procedures. It, therefore, recommended that the revenue agencies comprehensively reviewed their procedures to make them more effective and also strengthened their supervisory control to ensure the enforcement of relevant tax laws to maximise tax revenues.

Misapplication of funds which is mainly caused by laxity in the application of existing regulations continued to be prevalent in health institutions where drug accounts were misapplied for other purposes contrary to directives of the Ministry of Health. It said some MDAs did not have effective procedures for periodic review and follow-up on advances and loans granted. It said where such reviews existed they were not consistently enforced.