By
Felix Engsalige Nyaaba
Twenty-six revenue collectors, including 12 women of the Ledzokuku Municipal Assembly (LEKMA)
have been dismissed for indulging in various financial malpractices
leading to the loss of total revenue of GHC591.442.95,LEKMA sources told the Enquirer yesterday.
16 collectors were summarily dismissed, while the
rest are under interdiction pending further investigation by the police for
prosecution.
In addition, two Revenue Superintendents have also
been interdicted for alleged gross negligence, leading to the huge financial
loss to the assembly.
The suspects were caught when internal auditors of
the assembly conducted exercises recently.
The investigation by the internal auditors, revealed
malpractices involving the exchange of cheques for cash and the use of under
carbon receipts among other deals, to deny the assembly of its legitimate revenue.
The sources further told this reporter that, four of
the interdicted have embellezzed a total sum of GHC229, 439.83 through their
nefarious activities.
It said the issue of financial embellezzing came to
light when internal auditors during their routing exercises detected that some
of the official receipts which are been issued to clients of the assembly after
payment of various services could not be accounted for.
Following that mind boggling discovery, the auditors
then embarked on an exercises in the field on random sampling to find out the
root causes of the unexplained revenue leakages of the assembly.
The sources noted that in order to establish the
true and proper variance of the receipt book, the auditors took a total of each receipt calculated as the number of
receipt books used, multiplied by the number of receipts per book which brought to the total of 100 per book.
It further explained that, the auditors with the
total number then divided by the number of receipts gathered from the field and
the outcome was multiplied by the shortfall to arrive at the variances of
losses.
The sources indicated that one revenue officer was
issued with five receipts booklets, which have a total of 500 receipts and when
the auditors sampled from the field, they discovered 33 variance receipts which
was divided by the 500 receipt and a total of 1090 receipts with a revenue
total of GHC16, 515.15 was found to have gone into to such individual officer’s
pocket.
The internal auditor’s reports sighted by this paper
revealed that the dismissed as well as the interdicted officers batched home
not less than GHC2, 500.00 and GHC76, 281.48 between the year 2011 and 2012.
On the issue of the exchange of cheques to cash, the
sources told the Enquirer investigator that an officer who supposed to collect
a total cheque of GHC46, 008.07 end up collecting GHC26, 055.91 cash with the
variance of GHC19, 952.16 going into his pocket.
Two of the interdicted officers who work in the same
premises connived and embezzled a total amount of GHC229, 439.83.
The sources however said, “investigation into the
matter has already commenced and their dismissal and interdiction are to allow
for an uninterrupted process, and that the names of the suspects have been
withheld for the moment till investigation is concluded.
The Ledzokuku- Krowor Municipal Assembly (LEKMA) is
one such clear example of a decentralized system that is making tremendous
progress as a result of the local governance process.
The assembly
is only five years old and has since its creation in November, 2007 and
subsequent inauguration on 28th February, 2008 under the Legislative Instrument
(LI) 1865 made some outstanding progress.
It is the
highest revenue generator in the Greater Accra Region after the Accra
Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA)
respectively and is also arguably one of the fastest growing and finest
examples of self sustaining new assemblies in the country.
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