Dean of Graduate Students at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Prof. Samuel Antwi, has pointed out that the extension of KPMG’s work tenure may result in the government having to pay additional fees for their services.
KPMG is tasked with auditing the revenue assurance contract between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML-Ghana).
President Akufo-Addo ordered an audit into the contract between the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Strategic Mobilisation Limited (SML) due to concerns and revelations about the company’s performance and the accuracy of its claims.
The audit, initially scheduled to conclude on January 16, 2024, has been extended to February 23, 2024, following a request from KPMG, which has been approved by the president.
Prof. Antwi emphasized that despite being a request from KPMG, the extension would still incur additional costs for the government as the client.
“We’re going to pay for it because as I explained for every additional time except ‘give me some few days to put up my report’ an assignment that you were given two weeks to do, if you’re given six additional weeks, it means that there is some additional works you intend to do for which the client should pay.
“You can’t tell me that a job you have spent two weeks to do, you need six weeks to write a report. So we really need to interrogate why KPMG is asking for an additional six weeks.
“It means that in evaluating the work, the pre-audit arrangement, they made some mistakes in estimating the time they needed to complete the work. And once they realised that they needed an additional six weeks to complete the work, the client would have to pay more money.”
According to him, the turn of events is rather strange and KPMG may have to explain why they could not finish within the initial two weeks.
“They should come and tell us what is the issue that they’re unable to finish in two weeks, they need to finish in eight weeks,” he said.