Audit service to recharge banks

Business News for Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Source: GNA

2020-12-02

The Audit Service indicated on Tuesday that it is willing to charge a surcharge to any participating commercial bank that does not transfer the tax receipts collected from the various transit accounts to the respective Bank of Ghana portfolio accounts.

He said the action was in accordance with Article 187 of the 1992 Constitution.
A statement issued in Accra by Mr. George Swanzy Winful, Deputy Auditor General, said: “We have been brought to our attention to a post on social media in relation to our letter No. EID / B.Line / AUD / 20 / 7 issued on October 5, 2020 in connection with our audit observation on the transfer of tax revenue by GCB to unknown sources amounting to 52.5 billion GHC.

He said in the file that the audit in question was a special audit exercise, which was requested by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Ken Ofori Atta in a letter dated August 15, 2020, based on the mandate of the President in under Article 187 (8).

The statement said the request included; confirmation of the transfer of the receipts from the different transit accounts maintained by commercial banks to the respective BoG Holding Accounts from 2015 to date.

It was also to ensure that all Customs CCVRs dating from 2015 to date are properly credited to authorized bank accounts within specified periods.

The request was also to investigate and confirm that all transfers and debits in all Government accounts were duly approved by the Comptroller and Accountant General and the Ministry of Finance from 2015 to date.

“Please note that our outstanding letter is one of the letters we sent to participating commercial banks for their responses to violations observed during our reconciliation of their returns,” he said.

The statement says that with the help of both commercial banks and the Bank of Ghana, they were able to successfully trace some of the transfers.

He said that the cooperation of the participating banks was encouraging and “we hope to complete the reconciliation exercise soon. We will present the audit report to Parliament, ”he added.