Kanganja shields Dr Miti against Auditor General
Kanganja shields Dr Miti against Auditor GeneralBy Chibaula Silwamba
Monday April 16, 2007 [04:00]
Secretary to the Cabinet Dr Joshua Kanganja has shielded Ministry of Health permanent secretary Dr Simon Miti and accused Auditor General Anna Chifungala of being unfair to Dr Miti and other controlling officers. And sources have revealed that Dr Miti wrote a reconciliatory letter to Chifungala, which was strangely copied to first lady Maureen Mwanawasa.
During a closed door meeting with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Auditor General at Parliament Building on Friday, Dr Kanganja defended Dr Miti over the complaints raised by Chifungula about arrogance and lack of co-operation from Dr Miti and his staff when auditing the Ministry of Health.
A fortnight ago, Dr Miti and Chifungula differed during the PAC sitting when the former tried to defend the alleged financial irregularities in his ministry.
Thereafter, the PAC resolved to send Dr Miti and his team away and summoned Dr Kanganja to intervene on the impasse.
The sources said instead of being neutral during his submission on Friday, Dr Kanganja sided with Dr Miti and was "trying to put blame on the Auditor General."
"He was saying that the Auditor General was not fair with Miti and other controlling officers," the source said. "From our own observations, he (Dr Kanganja) was very defensive of Dr Miti and the controlling officers. He was more on the side of the controlling officers."
The sources said Chifungula and her team needed to be applauded for the hard work they were doing but unfortunately she was being frustrated.
"Despite the Auditor General working so hard, she is being frustrated. For example, at the Ministry of Health I don't think we are going to gain anything. The Secretary to the Cabinet needs to work hard to control the situation," the source said.
The sources added that there was need to destroy the 'culture' exhibited by Dr Kanganja of defending controlling officers when they were wrong. The source said the PAC had summoned Dr Kanganja to raise their concerns about the performance of the controlling officers regarding the misuse of public funds.
"We had to air our concerns. As far as we are concerned, the performance of the controlling officers is bad. There is so much misuse of public funds...what has been lost is a lot. But these are things being tolerated," the sources said. "For example, at health, Miti has been a problem...
we don't know maybe he has certain connections to the President Mwanawasa and he is so arrogant and he extended that arrogance to us. He had no regard for PAC. Unfortunately the Secretary to the Cabinet was on his side."
The sources also said Dr Miti wrote to Chifungula that he was ready for them to reconcile.
"Miti wrote a letter that he was ready to reconcile with the Auditor General and the same letter was copied to the first lady Maureen Mwanawasa. But why did he copy the letter to the first lady?" the source asked.
When he appeared before the PAC two weeks ago, Dr Miti disputed most financial irregularities observed by the Auditor General's report.
But Chifungula said accountability in the Ministry of Health left much to be desired.
Dr Miti told the PAC that the relationship between his ministry and the Auditor General's office was bad.
"It's not my principle to wash dirty linen in public but what I could say is that the relationship between the Auditor General and my office has not been very conducive," he said adding: "We need to sit down with the Auditor General's office to resolve these issues."
The following day, Chifungula jokingly told journalists that her duty was to wash dirty linen in public to protect public resources.
Dr Miti is expected to re-appear before the PAC.
Labels: PAC
posted by MrK @ 3:51 AM
2 Comments:
In coping his letter to Maureen Mwanawasa, Dr. Miti is obviously telling us that perhaps she is the power behind the president and sometime one wants to cut across barriers and get right to the flesh. After all he is a doctor and ought to know a thing or two about getting to the flesh....
Who the hell is Maureen? Who voted her into power? Just because she's laying Mwanawasa doesn't give her any credit, those are bedroom affairs and not our business. We are witnessing the making of a despot!
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