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The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has asked the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to sack district chief executives and other staff members of the assemblies who flout the Financial Administration Act and misappropriate funds. It noted that for more than a decade that the Financial Administration Act, (Act 654, 2003) had been in existence, financial malpractices at the district assemblies had worsened instead of improving and attributed the trend to the fragrant disregard of the law by members of staff of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development working at the district assemblies. It said disregard of the Financial Administration Act kept recurring because staff members who flout the law are not punished. Accordingly, the Chairman of the committee, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, suggested that henceforth, anybody who would be cited for any financial malpractice should be surcharged to serve as a deterrent to others. He was speaking at the committee�s sitting in Kumasi last Monday to consider the Auditor General�s report on the accounts of district assemblies for the years ending December 31, 2010, 2011 and 2012, and the utilisation of the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) and other statutory funds. Auditor-General�s report According to the Auditor-General�s report, a total of GH�48.4 million could not be accounted for in 2012 by all the district assemblies. That, Mr Agyeman-Manu said, could be avoided, if people entrusted with the public purse were diligent with their work and ensured that the right thing was done. Unauthorised payments The major issue had to do with payments that were made without the necessary documentation. For instance, the Wenchi Municipal Assembly was said to have spent GH�38,000 from its 2010 Common Fund allocation on funeral donation, allowances and fuel consumption, contrary to the guidelines regulating the use of the fund. The District Chief Executive for Dorma West, Mr Paul Donkor, nearly incurred the wrath of the committee when he claimed that an amount of GH�68,000 that the Auditor General said had been misapplied was used upon a supposed directive by the Administrator of DACF that 20 per cent of the allocated funds could be used for administrative purposes. While the directive was given in 2013, mainly to assist the newly created district assemblies that did not have enough Internally Generated Funds (IGF) to use 10 per cent of their DACF for their administrative activities, the said amount was used in 2010. The committee will, in the next few days, consider the Auditor General�s reports on the accounts of the district assemblies in the Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions.