GHC25.5m cash missing after sale of 1,719 cars – Report

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An amount of GHC25.5 million remains unfound after the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) failed to account for the sale of some 1,719 vehicles.

This was contained in a 2018 report by the office of the Auditor-General, in which he disclosed how 1,719 vehicles out of 2,388 were unaccounted for between 2015 and 2017 after auctioning by the GRA. 

Speaking to the media, Deputy Auditor-General in charge of Central Government Audit Department, George Swanzy Winful stated that his outfit, after sampling 2,388 vehicles, found out that monies for 1,719 vehicles out of the lot could not be accounted for by the GRA.

“Our reconciliation of Commercial Industrial Bulletin (CIB) and payment of auction and allocation of vehicles per the GCNet system for the period reviewed disclosed that, out of 2,388 sampled gazetted vehicles, 1,719 vehicles with an estimated total value of GHC25,500,000 were not accounted for whilst the remaining 669 vehicles were disposed of at GHC8,894,187 per the GCNet impromptu system”.

Raising concerns, Swanzy Winful said during their examination of records supporting the revenue of about GHC8.8m in connection with 669 vehicles auctioned, GRA failed to provide them with the relevant documents which made their work difficult as they were unable to ascertain the reliability and appropriateness of the auction procedures followed in realising the revenue.

Per the report, GRA’s Schedule Officer, Kwesi Asante had reacted to the claims, explaining that “some of the unaccounted for vehicles were given to their owners as first offer since higher revenue would be generated than when auctioned and also some of the chassis numbers gazetted were wrongly captured”. 

Responding to the Schedule Officer’s claims, the Deputy Auditor-General disclosed that Mr. Asante could not provide the Audit Service with the list of beneficiaries and as a result, they were unable to authenticate the appropriateness of the disposal of the 1,719 vehicles. 

The Deputy Auditor-General further indicated that “to ensure effective revenue mobilisation as well as the promotion of transparency and accountability in the disposal of the seized vehicles, we advised management to exercise strong oversight on the operations especially of the Auction Unit. We also urged management to provide us with the underlying records including the Auctioneer’s Reports, Internal Audit Reports and Reserve Price list of the 16 CIBs from 2015 to 2017”.

By: www.ghanaweb.com