Nineteen (19) former and present judges of Ghana’s superior courts have received citations from the Auditor General for purchasing public vehicles in violation of Regulation 158 of the Public Financial Management Regulations 2019. (L.I. 2378).
According to the rule, the principal spending officer of a covered entity is required to get the Minister’s written consent before transferring, exchanging, selling, donating, providing a contribution in kind, placing a vehicle in trust, or doing any other type of disposal.
The AG’s report states that 19 vehicles were “auctioned by the Service for GH¢1,023,507.96 without approval from the Minister of Finance†and recommended that the auction should be annulled.
“In the absence of approval from the Minister for Finance, we recommended that the auction should be nullified, and the vehicles recovered.â€
But social commentator, Bernard Allotey Jacobs has fired salvoes at the A-G for taking on the Judges.
According to him, what the AG did is not good, stressing “in every rule, there are exceptions”.
Claiming the AG failed to conduct himself appropriately in respect of this issue, he asked; “How can the Auditor-General do that? . . . Have you written to the Judges asking them of their opinion on the issue of how these Land Cruisers were sold to them?”
“The reason is that all the previous administrations auction them. It’s like it is now become different that they slip it or give it to the press to publish without even asking for the consent of the Judges. It is not fine! . . . We are not doing this country well!!”, he asserted.
“You didn’t do well at all,” Allotey Jacobs rebuked the Attorney General.