Twenty Ministries, Departments and Agencies overran their budgets by GH¢10,681,060,554 in 2019, the Auditor-General has observed in its report.

The Appropriation Act, 2018 (Act 984) sets budget limits that require MDAs to keep their expenditure within their appropriation.

However, the Auditor-General’s report said: “Our review of the accounts of 20 MDAs revealed excess expenditures of their goods and services, compensation, and non-financial assets over the revised budget allocation by a total of GH¢2,192,903,767, GH¢5,730,944,462, and GH¢2,757,212,325, respectively”.

It said though Controller and Accountant General (CAGD) argued that the overruns were due to “reallocation of the budget at the entity level and utilisation of [Internally-Generated Funds] (IGF) and other funds, they could not provide any evidence from the Ministry of Finance to corroborate their position”.

To minimise the risk of budget overruns, the Auditor-General urged the CAGD “to ensure strict compliance with the provisions of the PFM Act”.