Challenges of the Public Accounts Committee of Ghana’s Parliament in ensuring an efficient public financial management

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has been established by Standing Order 151 (2) to exercise an oversight function over the Executive on public expenditure on behalf of Ghana’s Parliament. The Committee is to review the Auditor General’s report and make recommendations to prevent future occurrences. With the consistent and increasing mismanagement of public finances, the PAC has been criticised as not being effective in its role in ensuring efficient public financial management in Ghana. The study sought to understand the work of the PAC with a focus on the challenges hindering the PAC to perform its functions in ensuring efficient public financial management. Employing a qualitative research approach, the study found that the challenges of the PAC were the late submission of Audit reports, a dysfunctional follow-up regime, extreme partisanship of the members of the committee, and inadequate technical support to analyse audit reports.