The Northern Region’s Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) management is coming under fire after it was discovered that the hospital had been paying a deceased employee’s salary for over two years.
According to the most recent Auditor-General’s report, the hospital paid the deceased employee’s salary for 26 months after his passing, at a cost to the state of thousands of Ghanaian cedis.
The hospital’s failure to swiftly remove the employee’s name from the government payroll exposed inadequate internal controls, according to the audit, which also labelled the lapse as a violation of financial management standards.
This was revealed when the hospital’s administration testified before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in Parliament.
Unearned salaries totalling GH¢1,449,000, including payments to the deceased employee, were noted in the Auditor-General’s report.
Members of the committee were incensed by the disclosure during Monday, September 29’s meeting in Accra.
Dr Emmanuel Sena Kwasi Donkor, the Director of Administration at TTH, informed the committee that just GH¢303,558.68, or around 21% of the total, had been collected thus far.
“We were able to recover some amounts. Before we got here, we had received letters from some banks stating that they had stopped transferring the funds to the government chest,” Dr Donkor explained.
He requested assistance from Parliament in order to collect the unpaid balance.
“Maybe at the end of this session, we will make a prayer to this House for the House to make an order directing those banks to transfer,” he said.
Dr Donkor further said that the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) had been tasked with handling the matter.
“EOCO has written back requesting the files of the people involved, and we have submitted them,” he continued.
Notwithstanding these guarantees, PAC members voiced their displeasure with the hospital’s handling of the situation and issued a warning that improper use of public monies would not be accepted.
Source: newsthemegh.com