Dr. Yakubu Seidu Adam
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has given the Acting Chief Executive of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr. Yakubu Seidu Adam, 90 days within which to refund GH¢113,00 to the state.
This follows the inability of the hospital to recover the said amount from its officers whose negligence led to the state paying the money in question as judgment debts.
The payments were made in the name of the state in one instance following the death of a patient who had suffered from an overdose of medication.
The other payment was as a result of a mix-up in identification of a corpse, which resulted in the exhumation and reburial, costing the tax payer to bear the cost.
The committee had earlier directed the hospital to ensure that the officers whose actions led to the various payments refunded the amount or in default the Acting Chief Executive would be made to pay it himself.
Appearing before the committee yesterday, Dr. Adam indicated that the officers had not refunded the money when he was queried about the issue.
“We recommended that the Acting Chief Executive Officer should recover the total amount of GH¢113,000 from the officers whose negligence occasioned the payment of judgment debt and the same paid into the Auditor General’s Recoveries Account at Bank of Ghana, failing which the Acting Chief Executive Officer should pay. Have you done that?” Samuel Atta-Mills, a Ranking Member questioned.
“We haven’t done that,” Dr. Adam responded and tried to explain, but he was cut short by Mr. Atta-Mills who concluded that “Our Chief Executive Officer, we give you 90 days to pay this GH¢113,000.”
Meanwhile, the Chairperson of the Committee (PAC), Abena Osei-Asare, has instructed the Ministry of Health to provide documentation for the payment of GH¢802,725 made for the proposed construction of a Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compound at Kwanyako, in Asuogyaman District of the Eastern Region.
This was after she described as “unacceptable,” absence of documents supporting the expenditure when it was reviewed by the Auditor-General.
“This is a capital expenditure item. Before you make any payment, the relevant documents must be attached for the payment to go through,” she pointed out.
“It is a must that when you make payments, you get your receipt to show proof. When auditors come — especially for a capital expenditure item — all the necessary documents should be present,” she added.
Explaining the omission, Daniel Nsiah from the Ministry’s Financial Reporting and Monitoring Department noted that the issue was due to the government’s electronic payment system; Government Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS).
He told the committee that the platform does not automatically generate traditional receipts, and added that “When the auditors come and you show them the swift advice, they don’t accept it as a receipt.”
He, however, assured the committee that steps are being taken to secure the required documentation validating the payment.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak