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Former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (PAC), Dr. Kan Daapah has revealed that the reason for the high financial leakages in the public sector is due to the shielding of corrupt officials by politicians.

Financial seepages, in the public sector, costs the economy over GHS2 billion annually. Economists and the IMF have asked government to take measures to seal these leakages in order to minimize aid-dependency and excessive government borrowing.

Speaking at the Annual Internal Auditors Conference, Dapaah disclosed that recommendations made by the PAC, after investigating how funds are expended in the various ministries, agencies and departments (MDAs) do not even get to the floor of Parliament for onward submission to the Judiciary.

The former PAC Chair said although Parliament is an institution mandated to introduce accountability in the public sector, no such work is done there as their recommendations don’t even get to the House, as a whole, for further discussions.

“The Judiciary is the body to sanction these corrupt officials but to do so, it must go through Parliament, but the work that my committee did, couldn’t see the light of day. The politicians sat on it. Not one of the various sittings that I had, went through Parliament to get to the judiciary, “he alluded.

Donors, for the past three years have withheld direct budgetary support to the country worth US$700 million government, therefore, urgently needs domestic revenues to pay salaries and finance other projects.

The new Public Financial Management, (PFM) Act, passed in 2016 is yet to have an impact on financial management of the public sector.

The internal audit system in the sector is also said to be under severe attack, as finance officials allegedly gang up to frustrate internal auditors in blocking leakages.

The Senior Minister Yaw Osafo-Marfo, speaking at the event, urged auditors to get tough in blocking malfeasance in the sector.

He said the auditors are required to play a competent role of ensuring that control systems are effective for improved accountability and performance in the sector.

He added that “with the new PFM, we want to assure Ghanaians that we would allow the law to work effectively to ensure people who are entrusted with responsibilities of protecting public funds are held responsible for their actions and inactions.