In recent years, the combined effects of inflation, recession, high-interest rates, new investment media and technological advances in information processing have made “Cash Management” an increasingly important and complex subject (IMF, 2001; Ter-Minassian and Parente, 1995). At times, the desire and effort to squeeze out the most from every dollar and to minimise idle cash balances has become an obsession with many organisations and countries. Therefore, effective and efficient Cash Management has become a “sine qua non” for the success of any business organisation (Horcher, 2006a; White, 2006). And Countries, “as Corporate Entities”, are no exceptions to this basic fundamental business principle (Wood & Sangster, 2012). The Theoretical Framework of this study was underpinned by the Stakeholder Theory (Freeman, 1984), the Financial Management Theory (Hayes and Nolan, 1974; Kingston, 1973), and the Modern Money Theory (Friedman, 1964; Keynes, 1930; Mitchell-Innes, 1914). We conducted a cross-sectional research through non-probability and purposive sampling with 200 respondents. Our face-to-face interviews, structured closed-ended and open-ended Questionnaires which were administered online through email application via Google Forms (as a result of the novel, dreaded, and disruptive Covid-19 pandemic), coupled with PETS (Khan and Pessoa, 2010; Reinikka and Svennson, 2006) resulted in startling revelations. Our major finding was that a government lacking an efficient and effective control over its cash resources will definitely pay for its institutional deficiencies in multiple ways (Ahmed, 2016).

This study examines the how the adoption of computerised accounting information systems influence the financial performance of the public sector and then explore the mediating role of internal control system in the linkage between the drivers of CAIS adoption and financial performance of the public sector. Data was collected from the operators and controllers of CAIS of 227 local governments across the sixteen regions of Ghana using questionnaire as the main instrument. The structural equation modelling was employed to analyse the hypothesized relationships between the drivers of CAIS adoption and financial performance and the mediating role of internal control. The initial model specification considered sixteen measurement variables, but through the data reduction technique, factor analysis, four factors were identified as being the main determinants of CAIS adoption. Using these factors as exogenous constructs, it was found that, whiles cost of adopting CAIS and readiness to adopt CAIS significantly influence the financial performance of local government, CAIS complexities and data security cost and threat have no significant direct influence on financial performance. Also, internal control system mediates the relationship between CAIS complexities and financial performance, and then data security threat and cost, but internal control system does not mediate the relationship between cost of adopting CAIS and financial performance and then readiness to adopt CAIS and financial performance. On this basis, the study recommended interventions by government to improving technology adoption among local government such as ICT education, training, emphasis on strengthen internal controls and awareness creation programs among key controllers of the local government. Also, local government should consider CAIS technology on the basis of Software-as-a-service (SaaS), also known as cloud accounting in an attempt to deal with the cost of managing accounting information systems.

Global concerns have over the years, been raised over the impact that business operations have on the environment. In response to these growing concerns, companies have begun to provide comprehensive disclosures on the environmental and social impact of their business operations. In this study, we sought to review the trends in disclosure practices as well as examine the extent to which companies are complying with the sustainability reporting guidelines in Ghana. The contextual data from the Akoben special audit on industrial operations supplemented with face-to-face interviews with important stakeholder groups served as the main data source for the study. The findings of this study showed that, even though the general trend in the environmental disclosures has increased over-time, the overall performance ratings of business operations did not meet the standards required for environmental disclosures. Based on the findings, we recommend that in the design and implementation of the rating programme, a broad consultation and active participation of all stakeholder groups must be encouraged to ensure the effectiveness of the programme. Additionally, the regulatory institutions need to be adequately resource by the government in order to strengthen their enforcement and monitoring roles.

The novel, dreaded, disruptive, and disastrous Covid-19 pandemic took the world by storm in January, 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic in Ghana is part of the worldwide coronavirus disease caused by “severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2)”. On 12th January, 2020 the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed that the novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness that affected a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. This was reported to the WHO on 31st December, 2019. On 11th March, 2020, WHO declared the novel Covid-19 a global pandemic (Graphic Online, 2020a). It is worthy to note how the Government of Ghana, political parties, citizens, scientists and academia, corporate entities, faith based organisations, traditional rulers, have offered varied forms of interventions to combat the scourge. The Theoretical Framework of this research was underpinned by the Theory of Epidemics, the Agency Theory, the Rational Choice Theory, and the Stakeholder Theory. We conducted a cross-sectional research through non-probability and purposive sampling with 250 respondents. We also employed face-to-face interviews, structured closed-ended and open-ended Questionnaires (Braun and Clarke, 2012; Denzin, 2017), which were administered online through email application via Google Forms. One of our major findings was that with the approval of Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine by the UK’s MHRA on 1st December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020b); and subsequently by the US FDA a week later on 8th December, 2020 (Graphic Online, 2020c), all governments around the globe in general, but Africa in particular, must make conscious efforts backed by adequate budgetary allocations to secure maximum quantities of the vaccines for their vulnerable teeming population.

In recent years, the combined effects of inflation, recession, high-interest rates, new investment media and technological advances in information processing have made “Cash Management” an increasingly important and complex subject (IMF, 2001; Ter-Minassian and Parente, 1995). At times, the desire and effort to squeeze out the most from every dollar and to minimise idle cash balances has become an obsession with many organisations and countries. Therefore, effective and efficient Cash Management has become a “sine qua non” for the success of any business organisation (Horcher, 2006a; White, 2006). And Countries, “as Corporate Entities”, are no exceptions to this basic fundamental business principle (Wood & Sangster, 2012). The Theoretical Framework of this study was underpinned by the Stakeholder Theory (Freeman, 1984), the Financial Management Theory (Hayes and Nolan, 1974; Kingston, 1973), and the Modern Money Theory (Friedman, 1964; Keynes, 1930; Mitchell-Innes, 1914). We conducted a cross-sectional research through non-probability and purposive sampling with 200 respondents. Our face-to-face interviews, structured closed-ended and open-ended Questionnaires which were administered online through email application via Google Forms (as a result of the novel, dreaded, and disruptive Covid-19 pandemic), coupled with PETS (Khan and Pessoa, 2010; Reinikka and Svennson, 2006) resulted in startling revelations. Our major finding was that a government lacking an efficient and effective control over its cash resources will definitely pay for its institutional deficiencies in multiple ways (Ahmed, 2016).