The Students Representative Council President of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) has been indefinitely suspended for allegedly embezzling funds.
The SRC General Assembly took the action after the President failed to give a proper account of how he used some student funds.
UPSA SRC President, Peter MwinZumah, was expected to appear before the SRC General Assembly to answer questions on allegations that his office had misappropriated funds, but he failed to show up.
This led the General Assembly to, on Monday, February 24, 2020, move a motion for his suspension over his attitude towards the legislative body.
According to an Independent Audit Report, which was released “the financial statement prepared by the Executive Council, in all material respect does not give a true and fair view of the financial position of the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) as at the end of the first semester of the 2019/2020 academic year.”
For some of the offices, the auditor noted that there was “lack of source documents for some expenditure related transaction making it difficult to obtain evidence about the authenticity of the expenditure”
The report accused the SRC President, Peter MwinZumah, of writing cheques when he was unauthorized to do so.
“A cheque of GH¢1,525 has been written twice. Two cheques were written for one payment voucher for the same expenditure. A further investigation showed that one of the cheques was canceled yet the canceled cheque cannot be found and these cheques were both written by an unauthorized officer, the President,” part of the report said.
It added: “An amount of GH¢25,000 handled by the President which was used in organizing a project work training or seminar for final year student has been signed, approved and spent. However, there are no source documents for this transaction. The auditors cannot verify what this amount was spent on and whether or not the full amount was spent.”
However, Gavie Prince, speaker of the UPSA’s General Assembly in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM confirmed that some monies cannot be accounted for and some procurement was done without recourse to the tendering body or committee.
He said “We summoned the SRC president to appear before the GA on the 13th February 2020 to come and account for some expenditures but in the course of doing so, we realized it was getting late so sitting was suspended to the 24th February 2020 and after that, the SRC president has failed to appear before the General Assembly to render account.
“But as per the invoices we received, a day cost GHC6000 but per the audit conducted, that’s not the case and also an amount of 2000 was given additionally for stationery for the student attendees but all those who went for the seminars said, they weren’t given anything.”
source: Pulse
