By Albert Allotey
Accra, May 22, GNA – Members of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Northern Ghana, has presented a petition to the Auditor-General to constitute a team from the Audit Service to conduct an audit on all the One Village One Dam (1V1D) projects in the North.
The petition was copied to Ghana News Agency on behalf of the CSOs and beneficiary communities of the projects by Mr Bismark Adongo Ayorogo, Executive Director of the Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA).
It said for purposes of promoting transparency and accountability of public resource management and establishing value for money for these projects, “we are invoking your constitutional mandate of auditing all public accounts to conduct an audit on all the 1V1D projects in Northern Ghana.”
The petition stated; “We were pleased and inspired by a policy statement in the 2018 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government (Page 61, Parag. 276) that the Audit Service was increasing its audit coverage on government’s new policies such as One Village One Dam among others to ascertain value for money.
“However, we have since not sighted any audit report from your Service on these 1V1D projects.”
The petitioners indicated that the 1V1D projects were funded by the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) of Ghana’s oil revenue to achieve the policy objectives of promoting double cropping in a year (2018 Budget, Parag 394), increase agricultural productivity, enhance food security and reduce the food import bill, (2017 Budget, Parag. 496) for improved livelihoods of the people.
The Service was therefore called upon to give the petition the attention it deserves, having demonstrated practical commitment to the promotion of good governance, transparency, accountability and probity in Ghana’s public financial management system over the years.
GNA