Internal auditors of the Ghana Education Service (GES) have called on the government and the GES to provide official vehicles and logistics to all the regional offices of the unit to enable personnel to discharge their duties more diligently.
That, they said, would empower the auditors to frequently monitor educational institutions to ensure judicious utilisation of funds provided by the government to promote quality education.
“If an auditor depends on the client’s means of transport for easy movement and materials to work with, he could inevitably be influenced in his reportage, ” they stated.
The acting Eastern Regional Auditor of the GES, Mr Joseph A. Allotey, who made the call, said “with the lack of transportation in all the regional units, the only option left for the GES internal auditors to monitor educational institutions is to use public transport as their daily mode of transportation”.
“Independence, one of the ethical and professional standards for auditors to perform their duties diligently, cannot be achieved when we lack some of the basic logistics and facilities,” Mr Allotey stated.
He was speaking at the 7th annual Eastern Regional conference of the Association of GES internal auditors at Asuogyaman in the Eastern Region.
The event themed: “The Internal Auditor: An agent for safeguarding assets for a better Ghana”, brought together internal auditors of the GES and regional and district directors of education in the Eastern Region to take stock of the achievements, challenges and plan towards the future progress of the units.
The acting regional auditor said the work of the GES internal auditors entailed frequent monitoring of several educational institutions across the country.
However, he said, no region could boast duty post vehicles to facilitate the movement of the auditors, a situation that often compelled the personnel to resort to the use of public transport in the discharge of their duties.
In his view, the GES received a chunk of the national budget to promote better education delivery in the country.
This and other development resources were provided by the government to pursue programmes such as the provision of basic classroom blocks for children attending classes under trees, the Capitation Grant, the School Feeding programme, the Free School Uniforms and the supply of free exercise books.
He said it was the responsibility of the internal auditors of the GES to ensure that funds provided for such programmes were utilised for the intended purposes.
“By so doing, the internal auditor ensures that contracts are appropriately, effectively and efficiently awarded and executed and reviews auditable areas such as contract selection, purchasing, receipt of goods and services, checking and approving of payment vouchers, ” Mr Allotey stated.
He, therefore, appealed to the management of the GES to support and co-operate with the internal auditors to discharge their professional duties more diligently.
He also appealed to the management of the GES to refrain from perceiving internal auditors as “witch hunters since our task is to act as watch-dogs for the government just as external auditors act on behalf of shareholders and creditors of a company”.
“The success or failure of the internal audit unit in the GES as an agent for safeguarding assets for a better Ghana will depend on the support of the top GES management, independence of the internal auditor and strong ethical culture within the GES, ” Mr Allotey added.
For his part, the Eastern Regional Chairman of the association, Mr Adolph Attah-Gatorwu, advised the GES internal auditors to live above reproach to enable them to earn the confidence and respect “that the management of GES desires”.
He said when the unit was restructured into zonal systems, the regional and the zonal heads of the unit were promised means of transport but the promise had “become a dream of the past”.
“We can easily count how many of our members have offices of their own at their stations while some have to share furniture with other staff members, a situation that makes keeping our documents safe and out of reach of third parties difficult, ” Mr Attah-Gatorwu said.
He, therefore, appealed to the GES to help address such problems confronting the internal auditors to enhance their role as agents for “safeguarding assets”.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Asuogyaman District Chief Executive, Mr Johnson O. Ehiakper, appealed to the GES to empower internal auditors in the area of logistics to enhance their output.
“Internal auditors need to be empowered to produce reports on time for a proper evaluation of controls put in place by the management to expose weaknesses that can lead to assets and other financial losses that had the tendency to derail quality education delivery, ” he stated.
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