Maravi

Ndalamei questions RDA’s failure to scrutinize, approve road contracts

Ndalamei questions RDA’s failure to scrutinize, approve road contracts
By Ernest Chanda
Thu 24 June 2010, 04:01 CAT

SECRETARY to the treasury Likolo Ndalamei yesterday expressed surprise that the Road Development Agency (RDA) board did not have a hand in scrutinising and approving road contracts when the law empowered them to do so.

And Auditor General Anna Chifungula has called for an investigation to establish how many contracts were signed during the time late president Levy Mwanawasa fell ill, through the time he died and when the country held the presidential election.

Appearing before the parliamentary public accounts committee (PAC), Ndalamei wondered what RDA board’s role was if they could not participate in awarding of contracts.

Ndalamei was responding to PAC chairperson Emmanuel Hachipuka who wanted to know if it was in order for the RDA board not to participate in the awarding of road contracts when the law empowered them to do so.

"It is strange that the RDA board does not participate in approving contracts. The law provides that they also participate and if they don't do that where is corporate governance? In fact according to the Act everything RDA does should be cleared by the board,” Ndalamei said.

“The board should make the agency accountable in whatever it does and the board should subsequently be made accountable for everything that RDA does. Otherwise what's the essence of their existence as a board if they can't participate in such a serious undertaking?"

On over-commitments, Ndalamei said his office could not be blamed for late or non-release of funds as alleged by RDA management because all the funds were released in 2009 as budgeted.

"I will not comment about other years because there are people who were there. But in 2009 all monies budgeted for on roads were released with supplementaries."

He said in 2008 the budget was K501 billion and K648 billion was released while in 2009 the budget provided for K715 billion and K822 billion was disbursed, with a supplementary of K116 billon.

“And I can also say that for 2010 all the monies will be released with supplementaries. And for this year we have even gone out mobilising additional resources for roads so that there is no excuse on why some of our budgeted roads cannot be worked on. And when I talk about meeting the budget allocation in terms of resources I'm talking about government resources, not donor money," he said.

When asked by Chifungula whether his office makes institutions such as RDA understand the meaning of the mid-term expenditure framework (MTEF) which they used as part of their excuse for over commitment, Ndalamei urged RDA to rely on the national budget provisions rather than MTEF.

"As for MTEF and the issue of multi year contracts, an institution is not supposed to commit based on MTEF figures on the green paper. Those are just indicative numbers for planning purposes. Institutions should follow the budget so that they do not overcommit," Ndalamei said.

And Chifungula called for an investigation into the number of contracts awarded in 2008.

She said a lot of very big contracts were signed when the President was ill and he subsequently died.

“ I remember that earlier in the same year 2008 42 companies were blacklisted by government. And let me take this opportunity to make it clear that my office did not recommend for the blacklisting of these companies, we only recommended for 10 companies. Of course government had their own inquiry system and they brought in more companies,” Chifungula said.

“…The number of contracts signed during that period is just too much. Since you are in control of the treasury maybe you should find someone to investigate financial crimes because to me this seems to be a serious matter of investigation.”

In response, Ndalamei said the government could investigate the matter.

"Normally we the civil servants don't comment about matters of a political nature, that is for you politicians. In any case I will comment in this way, that we can investigate how many contracts were signed that year and find out if the money was available for those contracts," said Ndalamei.

This prompted Hachipuka to say that he too had authority under Parliament to call for such an investigation.

Labels: ANNA CHIFUNGULA, AUDITOR GENERAL, CORRUPTION, EMMANUEL HACHIPUKA, LIKOLO NDALAMEI, MTEF, PAC, RDA, ROADS

posted by MrK @ 2:06 PM