The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has directed the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) to reimburse the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF ) account with an amount of GH¢ 586,824 it misapplied in 2011.
The amount, which was part of the assembly's share of the DACF, comprises GH¢500,000 paid as judgement debt to United Domestic Metalware Ltd, GHC65,000 paid as ex gratia to assembly members, GH¢15,577 as two-day sitting allowances and food for the inaugural meeting of assembly members and GH¢6,247 as payment of another judgement debt to Heals B Construction Ltd.
The committee gave the directive when officials of the assembly, led by the STMA Metropolitan Chief Executive, Capt Anthony Cudjoe (retd), appeared before it last Thursday.
The malfeasance on the part of the assembly is contained in the Auditor - General's Report for 2011.
Failure
The committee was of the view that the money was misapplied and noted that in spite of the fact that the Auditor-General had recommended that the amount be paid into the account, the assembly had failed to comply.
The committee also observed that the assembly engaged in single source procurement when it purchased sanitary tools for a clean-up campaign.
It came to light during proceedings that 58 payment vouchers valued at GH¢112,524 were without receipts and expenditure details for activities performed by staff and service providers.
It was also revealed that GH¢30, 296 was paid to 11 former employees of the assembly from August 2011 to December 2012 when they did not deserve to be paid.
Although the names were later deleted from the payroll, the recoveries had not been made.
Another malfeasance that came up during the sitting was that store items valued at GH¢ 71,888 on payment vouchers were not accounted for.
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