The Public Accounts Committee, PAC, of Parliament has called for stiffer punishment for an officer at the Birth and Death registration office at Suhum in the Eastern Region.
The officer is reported to have overcharged more than 500 birth certificate applicants in 2016.
The Auditor General, in his report, directed the officer to refund a total of seventeen thousand cedis to all 575 clients he overcharged.
He charged the applicants fifty cedis instead of the approved twenty cedis. The officer has since paid back in full the amount into the Consolidated Fund.
However, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee believes the directive by the Auditor General is not punitive enough.
It is, therefore, demanding that the officer pays back the amount with interest since he kept the money for over a year.
Meanwhile the Committee has also directed the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to reimburse persons who were overcharged immediately.
The Committee also recommended that the Ministry should sanction the said officer, a request the Ministry says it will consider.
