Ghana: Parliament installs a new internal audit committee
Ghana’s Parliament inaugurated a five-member Audit Committee for the Parliamentary Service Board, giving a new group responsibility for scrutinising Parliament’s financial management, risk controls and use of public resources.
The committee combines parliamentary officials with external professional expertise. Its members include representatives of the Internal Audit Agency and the Institute of Chartered Accountants, alongside the Clerk to Parliament and the Parliamentary Service’s chief financial officer.
Speaker Alban Bagbin presented the body as an institutional-governance mechanism rather than a narrow accounting exercise. Its mandate includes promoting transparency, accountability, risk management and responsible financial administration within Parliament itself.
The Parliamentary Service previously had an audit committee established in 2022. The 28 October decision therefore renews and reconstitutes an existing oversight mechanism rather than creating parliamentary auditing from scratch.
Its significance lies in the composition of the new committee and the explicit attempt to apply accountability standards internally. A legislature that scrutinises government expenditure can lose credibility if its own administrative spending is not subjected to comparable oversight.