The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has uncovered troubling financial irregularities at the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) following revelations in the latest Auditor-General’s report that the facility paid out unearned salaries totaling GHS1,449,000.

Committee members were particularly alarmed to learn that the hospital continued to validate the salary of a deceased staff member for 26 months.

Appearing before the PAC in Accra on Monday, September 29, the hospital’s Director of Administration, Dr. Emmanuel Sena Kwasi Donkor, confirmed that only GHS303,558.68 — about 21 percent of the total — had been retrieved so far.

“We were able to recover some amounts. Before we got here, we had received letters from some banks stating that they had stopped transferring the funds to the government chest,” Dr. Donkor explained.

He appealed to Parliament for intervention to ensure the remaining funds are fully recovered.

“Maybe at the end of this session, we will make a prayer to this House for an order directing those banks to transfer the funds,” he said.

Dr. Donkor also revealed that the hospital had submitted a list of implicated individuals to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) for further investigation and recovery efforts.

“EOCO has written back requesting the files of the people involved, and we have submitted them,” he added.

Despite these steps, PAC members expressed strong dissatisfaction. Ranking Member Samuel Atta-Mills questioned the hospital’s weak validation procedures, citing the example of the deceased employee.

“Habib Napare – date of separation was 2022. This man had died. Didn’t you attend the funeral? Yet you validated his salary for 26 months? And now you want Parliament to act?” he asked sharply.

The Committee has since warned that poor validation practices at public institutions create avenues for financial leakages that drain state resources, insisting that stricter accountability measures must be enforced at the hospital.