The Auditor-General, Daniel Yao Domelevo
Sam Gariba, a former director of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), has described the audit report published by the Auditor-General, covering scholarships granted between 2012 and 2018, as “very scandalous”.
Mr Gariba, in a media interview, said the conclusions drawn by the Auditor-General, Daniel Yaw Domelevo, to the effect that the GETFund did not act according to laid down procedures was not true and very indicting.
According to him, he did no wrong in administering scholarships during his time in office.
Followed procedures
Mr Gariba, who served between 2012 and 2016, said he only followed the existing procedure in awarding scholarships upon assumption of office.
“The request to make comment on the attached performance audit report by the Auditor-General did not come to me from the Auditor-General. It came to me from my successor to bring the audit to closure as standard practice.
“I did not invent anything; I saw and met a procedure and structure in the administration of the scholarship. So I found it, satisfied, picked it up and utilised in the administration of the scholarship. Indeed, that procedure was to award a scholarship to people who were studying outside the country,” he said
Auditor-General not law
Mr Gariba said Mr Domelovo rushed in concluding that there were breaches in the award of scholarships.
“The Auditor-General is not the law. The Auditor-General has gone and made some scandalous claims that I administered this thing without the board’s permission. I had two boards in my time. One was chaired by Professor Mills; he is dead. He knew about everything through the board. How can the Auditor –General reach such a scandalous conclusion? What is their stake? How do they know that we gave scholarships to the detriment of needy people?
“Just looking at a Member of Parliament, you just conclude that they are a millionaire and are not entitled to get funding from the GETFUND. How can you reach such a conclusion? That is the kind of ridiculous conclusion the Auditor-General wants me to reach,” he charged.
Retract or I sue
Meanwhile, Kennedy Osei Nyarko, Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, has threatened to sue the Auditor-General, if he fails to retract his name from the list of beneficiaries of the GETFund scholarship.
Mr Nyarko said at no point has he ever benefitted from a GETFund scholarship to study abroad.
“I want to state categorically that I have not benefitted from any GETFund scholarship to study abroad. And I do not intend applying for any scholarship from the GETFund Administrator to pursue my education.
“I am capable of financing my own education to whatever level I want to go, whether being locally or abroad, so I do not see why the Auditor-General will just put my name in the list of people who have benefitted from some form of a scholarship to study abroad,” he said.
He continued, “My focus is why the Auditor puts my name on the list when I have not benefitted. What is his motivation? What is he trying to achieve? We need to ask the Auditor-General what his motivation is. As a responsible citizen, I am going to give the Auditor-General an option, either to retract what he has published and if he fails to do that then my lawyers will proceed to court.”
