Investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni has questioned the credibility and relevance of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), describing its current operations as little more than a “nuisance drama.”
In a post shared on social media alongside a photo of former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, his deputy John Kumah, and current PAC Chairperson Abena Osei Asare, Manasseh criticised the committee’s effectiveness in holding public officials accountable.
“One is late. One has run away, leaving behind a trail of dirty footprints. And one is enacting nuisance drama against new appointees who appear before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to answer for the mess created by the administration she served as a Deputy Minister of Finance,” he wrote.
According to him, the audit reports currently before PAC cover instances of financial malfeasance that occurred during Abena Osei Asare’s tenure as Deputy Minister of Finance, making her leadership of the committee morally questionable.
Manasseh further argued that PAC has consistently failed to deliver meaningful outcomes despite the public attention it commands.
“PAC has not proven to be useful, besides wasting public funds and raising our emotional temperatures about the malfeasance the Auditor General uncovers,” he lamented.
Citing past instances, he recalled how the James Avedzi-led PAC once ordered metropolitan and district assemblies to discontinue fraudulent fumigation contracts with waste management company Zoomlion, only for the same contract to be renewed and even extended from two to five years.
For Manasseh, the issue goes beyond the credibility of the current chairperson; it questions the entire committee’s ability to enforce accountability.
“The moral authority of the current PAC Chair, Abena Osei Asare, who was Ken Ofori-Atta’s deputy, is being challenged. But the bigger question should be the usefulness of the annual drama we witness at the PAC sittings,” he concluded.
