Produce records of all outstanding judgement debts — Sole Commissioner directs MOFEP

Mr Awua-Peasah, however, failed to present records of payments dating back to 1993.

Giving reasons for the failure, he said the MOFEP had initiated moves to secure the documents from the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD) but the department had written back to the ministry requesting for the various batch numbers of those official records to make the search easier.

According to him, the ministry was working assiduously to find the batch numbers and expressed the hope that by the middle of January next year, they would be sent to PRAAD for action.

Mr Awua-Peasah also failed to present to the commission the budget statements from 1993 to 1997, as demanded by the commissioner at an earlier sitting, explaining that the ministry did not have the documents in its records department.

He said information available to him pointed to the fact that some of his colleagues still had copies of those documents in their possession, adding that the ministry would endeavour to make copies available to the commission after the Christmas holidays.

Justice Apau observed that there were many private companies who had received payments from the government through the MOFEP and yet there were no records of those transactions in the documents of the ministry and sought to know why.

Mr Awua-Peasah could not explain, except to say that the issue must be looked at on a “company-to-company” basis.

The Chief Cashier of the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD), Mr Mark William Attipoe, who was next to appear before the commission, presented bank transfer advice documents for 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 to the commission.

Mr Attipoe, who said his job entailed effecting payments on behalf of the government within and outside the country, said the CAGD could not provide documents covering the period 1992 to 1997 as demanded.

He explained that the time provided for the department to search for the documents was short and said what the CAGD had been able to retrieve so far was from 2007 to date.

According to him, the CAGD had written letters to the PRAAD to make available those documents and pleaded for more time to present them before the commission.

He explained that after every three years, documents at the CAGD records office were transferred to the PRAAD, hence the difficulty. 

 Story by Mark-Anthony Vinorkor