The Deputy Chairman of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Davis Ansah Opoku, has called for a fundamental shift in how the committee operates, arguing that Ghana must move beyond the cycle of recurring financial infractions in public institutions and redirect its oversight energy toward improving state profitability.
Speaking on TV3’s Hot Issues on Sunday, May 24, 2026, Opoku said the ideal outcome would be a PAC that spends less time cataloguing audit violations and more time interrogating why some state institutions outperform others financially, with a mandate to push for greater returns to the public purse.
He envisioned a future where the committee convenes not to flag irregularities, but to question why a state institution’s profit margins have declined from one year to the next and to demand stronger performance in subsequent periods. He stressed the importance of channelling institutional energy into financial growth rather than damage control.
“Sometimes the issues now keep repeating in every auditing cycle,” he said, underscoring the urgency of breaking the pattern.
To address this, Opoku proposed that parliamentary committees be required to report back periodically to the PAC on corrective steps taken against previously identified infractions, creating a structured tracking mechanism that brings finality to flagged matters rather than allowing them to resurface year after year. He said Ghanaians deserve regular public updates on the progress of corrections made following committee appearances.
On the Value for Money Office, signed into law by President Mahama on May 12, 2026, and expected to begin operations in January 2027, Opoku said the institution would complement rather than replace the PAC. He argued that stronger laws and tighter policies remain essential to closing loopholes identified through audit processes, and that both bodies working together would strengthen Ghana’s broader financial accountability framework.
