Maravi

PAC castigates office of Accountant General

PAC castigates office of Accountant General
By Florence Bupe
Sat 03 Apr. 2010, 04:00 CAT

THE Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday castigated the office of the Accountant General for seconding Ministry of Education accountants to the Copperbelt provincial office.

PAC chairperson Emmanuel Hachipuka expressed disappointment that the Accountant General’s office decided to send education ministry accountants to the Copperbelt office, which he said needed special attention.

Hachipuka argued that the accounts department in the Ministry of Education leaves much to be desired and it was unacceptable to have accountants who had performed below expectations to be placed at an office that had a serious problematic background.

About three years ago, almost the entire accounts staff at the Copperbelt provincial office was dismissed for misappropriation of funds and were currently facing charges in court.

“Why should the office of the Accountant General send accountants from the Ministry of Education to the Copperbelt provincial office when they education ministry accountants also have a poor performance record,” Hachipuka wondered.

“The Ministry of Education is not a ministry where you can source accountants from, even if they have a surplus of staff.”

Hachipuka said it was unfortunate that the office of the Accountant General had used numbers and not performance as a criterion for recommendation of accounts staff to the Copperbelt Province.

“You cannot afford not to use performance as a yardstick for appointment of staff. Sending the wrong people to the Copperbelt office will result in a similar recurrence where money will just go to benefiting officers instead of alleviating poverty through various projects,” he said.

Hachipuka said the committee would summon the Secretary to the Treasury to try and resolve the problems that were still rampant in the Copperbelt office.

He also suggested that the Ministry of Finance should come up with measures to prosecute culprits of resource abuse as opposed to leaving the task to controlling officers alone.

And Copperbelt Province permanent secretary Villie Lombanya appealed for additional staff in the accounts department as a way of enhancing performance.

Lombanya disclosed that currently the office operated with 13 accounts staff, against a requirement number of 30.

The office is also faced with challenges in the procurement and planning departments.

“The current situation is not helping me put things back in order. I only have 13 staff members in the accounts department instead of the required 30 and this is making operations very difficult,” said Lombanya.

Labels: ACCOUNTANT GENERAL, EMMANUEL HACHIPUKA, PAC

posted by MrK @ 3:29 PM