The Institute of Chartered Accountants-Ghana (ICAG) has briefed Media Without Borders about the action it has taken so far on the two petitions lodged by two individuals against Abdulai Suglo, a university director of finance accused of drawing double salary.
It wrote back, sharing the details, after this media outlet requested information about the petitions in a letter couriered to the institute on Tuesday, 6 May 2025.
An ICAG member named Zakaria Aliu Domanangmine, who is also a former student of the Simon Diedong Dombo University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS), filed the first petition in 2023.
A finance professor in the SDD-UBIDS’ Department of Banking and Finance, Prof. Yakubu Awudu Sare, who doubles as the dean of the university’s School of Business, lodged the second petition the following year.
Suglo, an ICAG member who served as a director of finance at SDD-UBIDS between 2020 and 2025, wrote to the ICAG, assuring the institute of his cooperation in resolving the issues raised against him in the petitions.
The allegations levelled against him were receipt of “double salary” as well as “falsification of financial statements and unethical conduct.”
What ICAG said in its reply letter
The institute told Media Without Borders in its 2-page reply letter that it referred the petitions to the Public Accountancy Supervisory Committee (PASC).
The PASC is one of the three independent bodies set up by the ICAG Act 1058 of 2020, the other two being the Accountancy Practice Review Committee (APRC) and the Disciplinary Committee (DC).
The PASC demanded evidence from the two petitioners to support their claims, after acknowledging receipt of the complaints.
Suglo, according to the institute, similarly attached some documents to the defence statement he filed against the petitions.
The ICAG said the PASC handled the two petitions as one case because the issues therein were the same. It further stated that the committee, then, wrote to the Ghana Audit Service (GAS), requesting more information about the audit of the accounts of SDD-UBIDS and the double-salary allegations levelled against Suglo.
The committee, according to the institute, also wrote to SDD-UBIDS and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), demanding more information about Suglo’s employment and terms of his engagement. Suglo worked as a senior accountant at KNUST before joining SDD-UBIDS in June, 2020.
The hearing of the case began on Wednesday, 2 October 2024, at the ICAG Secretariat in Accra, the institute said.
“At the hearing, some statements were made by the parties which were unsupported by the evidence already before the committee.
“As a result, the committee afforded them the opportunity to submit additional evidence to support those statements,” stated the letter, signed by the ICAG’s chief executive officer, Paul Kwasi Agyemang.
Other developments in the ICAG letter
The institute said the committee held a number of meetings after the first day of the hearing to discuss the evidence and documents submitted by the parties.
The meetings also centred on the findings made so far through the earlier communications with the Ghana Audit Service and the two public universities (SDD-UBIDS and KNUST).
It also disclosed that the committee scheduled Thursday, 15 May 2025, for the second hearing appearance for the parties and that the committee would “conclude on the matter and make its recommendations to the Disciplinary Committee” after the second sitting.
The ICAG told Media Without Borders that the PASC was an independent statutory committee because its members were not staff of the institute.
“These are highly respected individuals who have been invited from outside the institute to constitute the committee. Some of them belong to other professions, notably the legal profession.
“The decisions and recommendations of this committee have far-reaching consequences. Therefore, it is imperative that due process is followed to ensure fairness,” the letter stressed.
It added: “Be assured that the institute is committed to ensuring the highest standards of ethical conduct and professionalism among its membership. Therefore, this complaint, as well as all other complaints, [is] being handled with the utmost seriousness and diligence.”
Checks by the author of this report show that the committee sat for the second time on the case on May 15 as scheduled.
Members of the public, aware of what the law says regarding receipt of double salary from the Consolidated Fund and the position of the ICAG Act 1058 of 2020 on it, now await the outcome of the case.
Background
In 2020, Suglo took a sabbatical leave from KNUST, where he was a senior accountant, to take up a new job as interim director of finance at SDD-UBIDS in Wa, capital of the Upper West region.
His sabbatical leave was to begin on Monday, 10 August 2020, and end it on Monday, 9 August 2021. But he started working at SDD-UBIDS in June, 2020.
Before he left KNUST for SDD-UBIDS, KNUST warned him in a letter signed by its assistant registrar, Yvonne Baiden, against drawing double salary.
The letter partly read:
The condition of service regarding sabbatical leave is that the university should continue to pay your basic salary.
However, based on the external auditors’ recommendation, an employee cannot draw double salary from the consolidated fund.
In view of this, you can either draw your basic salary from the university or the institution you are serving during the sabbatical leave, but not both.
In 2021, Suglo was made a substantive director of finance by the SDD-UBIDS governing council.
After his sabbatical leave ended in 2021, KNUST granted him a one-year extension upon request. And when the extension ended, he remained at SDD-UBIDS by applying to KNUST for a secondment (a temporary transfer) and later for a leave of absence.
While he was working at SDD-UBIDS, he was drawing salaries and allowances from both KNUST and SDD-UBIDS at the same time.
He drew Gh¢115,516.62 in salaries and allowances combined from the two universities for 19 months between June 2020 and December 2021. External auditors from the Ghana Audit Service discovered the scandal while reviewing the financial records of SDD-UBIDS in 2023.
The 2023 Report of the Auditor-General stated on page 245 that Suglo proposed to pay the money back in a monthly instalment of Gh¢6,417.59 over a period of 18 months.
The same page says he was directed by the audit service to pay the money (Gh¢115,516.62) back into the Auditor-General’s Recoveries Account number 1018331470015 at the Bank of Ghana.
Appearance before Public Accounts Committee
Suglo appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in Parliament on Friday, 16 August 2024, in relation to the matter.
He admitted during the televised session that he received double salary from the two universities.
But he said he did so because SDD-UBIDS did not honour some terms and conditions of employment to which senior members of the university, including him, were entitled.
He also denied he proposed to refund the money in instalments as stated in the 2023 auditor-general’s report.
Months after the external auditors discovered the double-salary scandal, he resigned from SDD-UBIDS.
He explained in his resignation letter, dated 1st August 2024, that his leave of absence from KNUST had ended and that the university (KNUST) had rejected his extension request. But he said he was prepared to remain at SDD-UBIDS “to ensure a smooth transition” and he did remain there until 6th January 2025.
Sources told the author of this report that the KNUST management moved him to the university’s remote campus at Obuasi, Ashanti Region, when he returned to the school from the leave of absence.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
