The Ghana Anti Corruption Coalition (GACC) in partnership with the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) and Transparency International Ghana has organised a day’s Zonal capacity Building workshop for civic actors and media practitioners.
The initiative, with financial support from The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), aimed at enhancing governance and accountability with the focus on the Auditor-General’s report and the CitizensEye App.
About 40 participants, drawn from Ashanti, Bono and Bono East regions, were taken through the Structure and Mandate of the Auditor-General and application and Technical structure of the CitizensEye App at the workshop facilitated by the Ghana Audit Service (GAS).
The participants were trained on the Auditor-General’s constitutional mandate under Article 187, the process of generating audit findings and the critical role of the media in enhancing public oversight.
The session also demonstrated how the CitizensEye App, developed by the Ghana Audit Service with the support of GIZ, as part of its anti-corruption efforts, deepen the understanding of audit reports by journalists to promote informed and accurate discourse.
The CitizensEye App enables journalists to access citizen-generated reports on suspected corruption and service delivery failures to support evidence-based journalism.
It also encourages members of the public to report on corruption issues including suspected cases of fraud, abuse, wastage and other irregularities in the areas of education, health, environment, infrastructure and agriculture.
Madam Alberta Owoo of the Ghana Audit Service mentioned that the Constitution has various laws that regulate the mandate of the Audit Service in auditing public accounts of all institutions.
These include Articles 187, 188, 189 and 286 of the 1992 Constitution.
She disclosed that Article 184 (2 and 3) mandates the Ghana Audit Service to audit the Bank of Ghana while Article 286 (1) permits the Auditor-General to take into custody written declaration of all properties (Assets owned) or liabilities owned by persons who hold public office.
Madam Owoo also indicated that Section 51(1) (CI 70) of the Audit Service Regulation provides for the application of the CitizensEye App.
She further disclosed that the Audit Service did a 90.59% audit coverage in 2024.
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