Glossary & field legend.

Ghana's independent constitutional auditor of public funds.

The Auditor-General is the independent office established under Article 187 of Ghana's Constitution to audit the public accounts of Ghana and of all public offices, and to report the findings to Parliament each year.

A sum the audit found was not properly accounted for or applied.

An amount the Auditor-General reports as not properly accounted for, not supported by documents, not recovered, or spent outside the rules. It is an audit exception — not a finding of theft, fraud or a court judgment.

Misapplied, unaccounted or unbanked cash.

Covers unaccounted-for cash, misapplication of funds, unsupported payments, unretired imprest and revenue collected but not banked.

Unearned salaries and ghost-name payments.

Salaries paid to separated staff, unearned compensation not refunded to the state, and unclaimed pay not returned to the Consolidated Fund.

Purchases made outside the Public Procurement Act.

Contracts and purchases awarded without competitive tendering, without approval, or otherwise outside the requirements of the Public Procurement Act, 2003 (Act 663) as amended.

Taxes withheld or assessed but not remitted.

Withholding taxes deducted but not paid to the Ghana Revenue Authority, and taxes assessed but not collected.

Payments for work not done or works abandoned.

Payments made for works not executed, delayed or abandoned projects, and overpayments to contractors identified during the audit.

Unaccounted stores, stock or public assets.

Items purchased but not recorded in store ledgers, missing stock, unaccounted fuel, and public vehicles or equipment that could not be traced during the audit.

An advance of public money to be retired with receipts.

Money advanced to an officer for specific expenditure, which must be accounted for (retired) with receipts by the end of the financial year. Unretired imprest is treated as a cash irregularity.

A sum the audit says should be refunded to the state.

An amount the Auditor-General recommends be recovered from an officer, contractor or institution. Recovery is a separate process — this site does not track whether recovery happened.

The Auditor-General's power to reject spending and bill the officer.

Under Article 187(7)(b), the Auditor-General may disallow any item of expenditure contrary to law and surcharge the officer responsible for the amount. Surcharges can be appealed in court.

Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

Central government ministries, departments and agencies funded from the Consolidated Fund and audited annually.

Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies.

Ghana's local government bodies, audited separately from central government. Reports on them cover the District Assemblies Common Fund and other local revenues.

State-owned enterprises and statutory bodies.

Boards, corporations and other statutory institutions that operate commercially or semi-commercially on behalf of the state.

Public basic and secondary schools and related bodies.

Public pre-tertiary educational institutions — basic schools, senior high schools and the education bodies that oversee them.

Public universities, technical universities and colleges.

Public universities, technical universities, colleges of education and other tertiary bodies audited under a separate annual report.

The consolidated annual accounts of the state.

The annual financial statements of the Government of Ghana, audited by the Auditor-General and reported to Parliament.

The state's main revenue account.

The central account into which most public revenues are paid and from which government spending is drawn.

The parliamentary committee that reviews audit reports.

The committee of Parliament that publicly examines the Auditor-General's reports and questions officials about the findings. Its work is outside the scope of this site.

Ghana's government accounting year: 1 January to 31 December.

The 12-month accounting period a report covers. Some reports cover periods that span more than one calendar year; the year shown here is the primary year of the report.

The audit year the figure belongs to.

The Ghana government financial year the report covers. Findings are grouped by this year, not by the year the report was published.

The party holding the presidency in that financial year.

NDC 2009–2016, NPP 2017–2024, NDC 2025 to date. Used only to group findings by administration — it does not assign blame to any party or person.

The category of public body audited.

One of MDAs, District Assemblies (MMDAs), Public Boards and Corporations, Pre-University institutions or Tertiary institutions. Each stream has its own annual report.

The irregularity total in cedis, exactly as reported.

The figure stated in the Auditor-General's report, in Ghana Cedis, nominal and not adjusted for inflation. We do not recalculate or reinterpret it.

An approximate conversion for cross-year comparison.

Converted using the year-end Bank of Ghana interbank rate for the relevant financial year. Approximate only — use it to compare years, not as an official figure.

How many published reports contributed to the total.

The number of separate Auditor-General reports whose figures make up the total shown for that year or stream.

The official published report the figure comes from.

A direct link to the report on the Ghana Audit Service website so you can verify any figure at source.

The number of records currently indexed on the site.

Each entry summarises the reported irregularities for one financial year and audit stream. It is not a count of individual audit queries or of cases.

The span of financial years available.

FY2010 to the most recent published report. Reports for 2000–2009 are not reliably available in the online archive, so those years are absent.

Financial years with no usable published report.

Years where no report exists in the archive, or where the published document could not be read reliably. Totals for periods containing gaps are incomplete.