A former Auditor-General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo, has discouraged any suggestion to create a fiscal Council as part of efforts to curb fiscal recklessness in public sector financial management.
He said, the phenomenon of fiscal recklessness can be minimised by waking up existing state institutions with the mandate to do so, to their responsibilities.
“The tendency in Ghana is that we establish state institutions and they are also a burden on the same public funds. They don’t perform, then we create another one. In my considered opinion, the Attorney-General, the Auditor-General, the Director-General of Internal Audit Agency and Public Accounts Committee, these institutions, we should wake them up,” Mr Domelevo stated.
The anti-corruption crusader was contributing to discussions at an event By IMANI Centre for Policy and Education in Accra on October 23.
The discussions followed a presentation on a recent research report by IMANI Ghana which ranked the Ministry of Finance as the most fiscally reckless among all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) from 2015 to 2023.
He noted, “Let me be honest with you, if they are up and doing, the Ministry of Finance itself will repent. In 2021, I targeted the Ministry of Finance, surcharging the Minister of Finance and his Chief Directors. and I think that would have brought discipline.”
The study by IMANI CPE. which was presented by a Senior Research Associate, Dennis Asare, highlights the Ministry’s repeated budget overruns, excessive borrowing, and mismanagement of public funds during the period under review.
Imani Ghana therefore recommended, among others, the setting up of an Independent Fiscal Council.
“Establish and legislate an Independent Fiscal Council by amending the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2018 (Act 982). The historical trend of fiscal recklessness evidenced by the positive growth in financial irregularities lay credence to the fact that the existing accountability measures in the PFM system have failed to reduce the infractions by MDAs, and thus there is the need for an independent body with the oversight over government financial decisions,” IMANI CPE recommended.
It explained that “The independent fiscal council must be clothed with the power to oversee and stop some of the fiscal decisions of the government and MDAs. In addition, the independent fiscal council must have the power to oversee all the big-ticket expenditure items of the government and supervise the macro-fiscal planning activities of the Ministry of Finance. This can potentially minimize the incidence of overstatement revenues by MDAs leading to tax and cash irregularities, where MDAs have to withhold expected government revenues to undertake some of their budgeted activities.
However, Mr Domelevo held a contrary view.
“I agree with you that we should ensure indiscipline comes down, but I don’t think it is in creating another burden on the consolidated fund. We have done that too often. So, let’s look at the mandates that already exist and see whether it cannot be executed within the mandates, so that it will be cost beneficial,” he opined.
Read also:
Ministry of Finance is most fiscally reckless MDA – IMANI Ghana report
