Maravi

Kanganja urges controlling officers to look after public resources

Kanganja urges controlling officers to look after public resources
By Joan Chirwa and Kabanda Chulu
Wednesday July 11, 2007 [04:00]

Recent revelations of unaccounted for public funds are a clear demonstration of erosion of foundations of the civil service and government, secretary to the Cabinet Joshua Kanganja has said. During a review workshop for controlling officers on Strengthening Treasury and Financial Management in Lusaka yesterday, Kanganja urged public workers to immediately control the situation and ensure interests of the citizens were safeguarded.

"There have been frequent reports in the press of deep concern by oversight institutions regarding the abuse, misapplication, mismanagement and outright misappropriation of public resources," Kanganja said. "The oversight institutions, which have expressed dismay at our performance in managing public funds include, but not limited to, the Office of the Auditor General, the Public Accounts Committee, the Committee on Estimates and the Committee on Government Assurances."

Kanganja said controlling officers in government institutions should ensure public funds were properly utilised for the enhancement of the country's economy.
"As controlling officers, you are custodians of public resources and you are therefore expected to spearhead the development of the country as well as safeguard the interests of the general citizenry," Kanganja said. "In all these instances of misapplication of funds, there is a controlling officer who authorises a payment to be made for such a shoddy work. In all such cases, there is a controlling officer who has allowed a situation where work has been certified as complete and having met the stipulated standard for payment to be effected."

He said controlling officers had the ability to implement remedial measures to check abuse of public funds.

"It is therefore within our control as a public service to correct this situation. The controlling officers attending this workshop have the ability to implement remedies that we will formulate so that the public can once more have confidence in us as the permanent establishment who are the unimpeachable custodians of the common good," Kanganja said. "As controlling officers, you should strictly adhere to and enforce the provisions of the public finance Act and the 2006 Financial Regulations, which I am reliably informed, have been distributed to all controlling and accounting officers. I also urge the Secretary to the Treasury to ensure that the disciplinary provisions under part four of the public finance Act number 15 of 2004 are enforced."

Earlier, the Secretary to the Treasury Evans Chibiliti urged controlling officers to come up with measures to improve their performances in the area of financial management and controls.

"For some considerable time now, but especially in the last few weeks, one cannot open the newspapers without coming across press reports of concerns being expressed by oversight institutions about mismanagement, misuse, theft of public resources as well as all manner of irregularities in the conduct of the financial affairs of the republic," Chibiliti said. "As public officials charged with the responsibility of safeguarding and managing these resources, we must accept it as our duty to examine our performance in the area of financial management. We must not be defensive in the discussion of our perceived unsatisfactory performance in the discharge of our responsibilities in this area."
Chibiliti called on controlling officers not to criticise the work of the Auditor General but should instead strive to achieve good financial management in their daily operations.
"I want us to embrace the view that the Auditor General (Anna Chifungula) is our ally and her work is intended to complement ours by bringing to our attention areas of our financial management which need strengthening," said Chibiliti.

And during a discussion after a presentation by the Zambia National Tender Board (ZNTB) director general David Kapitolo, Lusaka Province permanent secretary Susan Sikaneta said the government should come up with a clear and strong statement on contractors who fail to do up-to-date work after being paid for the job.

"When we go for inspections, everyone complains about the shoddy work being done. We need to come up with a strong statement warning contractors who do below-standards jobs," Sikaneta said. "These, in fact, need to be removed from the list of contractors may be that is when others can learn to do a better job."
Kapitolo, in his presentation, highlighted the importance of adequate planning in procurement.

He said adequate planning in procurement among government institutions could reduce cases of panic-spending of public resources before the end of each financial year.
"Once money has been allocated as reflected in the yellow book, institutions need to start planning for procurement," Kapitolo said. "Planning also does remove the chaos we see around November and December when people rush to finish spending money they have been given."

Labels: CORRUPTION, GOVERNANCE, JOSHUA KANGANJA

posted by MrK @ 6:01 AM