Maravi

ACC to sign MoU with Auditor General's office

ACC to sign MoU with Auditor General's office
By Moses Kuwema
Mon 13 Feb. 2012, 12:59 CAT

ANTI-CORRUPTION Commission director general Rosewin Wandi says the commission will soon be signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the office of the Auditor General which will enable her institution to be taking prompt action on cases cited in her reports.

Speaking when she appeared before the parliamentary committee on legal affairs, governance, human rights and gender matters last week, which was looking at public sector corruption; the procurement process of goods and services, Wandi said negotiations between the two institutions had been going on since December.

"As the ACC, we have started being proactive. Since December we have been negotiating with the Auditor General so that as they carryout their audits and discover corrupt cases, they can be reporting to us and we hope to enter into a memorandum with them," Wandi said.

Wandi, however, said in the Auditor General's report there were varying highlights which are usually brought and some of which were to do with theft and could best be handled by the police.

"We need to be sitting law enforcement agencies so that when the Auditor General's report comes out, we decide who takes what. For the previous reports, we have set up a team of officers who will look at the cases which can be taken up by the ACC," she said.

And Wandi said corruption and any other related malpractices in the procurement system in the country was under-productive and impacts negatively on national development and that it generally erodes the society's moral fibre.

She said corruption in the procurement and award of contracts lowered the quality of public infrastructure, lowers expenditures on education and health.

"Public sector corruption in award of contracts in the road sector has led to poor workmanship on our road network. Most of the roads which are constructed either get washed away or eroded in the next rainy season or do not last for a long time," Wandi said.

Wandi said as a result of corruption, some companies awarded road contracts lacked trained manpower, machinery and experience.

She said this was costly for the government because it had to spend more on road construction instead of investing in other sectors of the economy.

Wandi said a clear demonstration of the effect of corruption in the procurement and award of contracts were the recent award of road contracts by the Road Development Agency for the rehabilitation and upgrading of urban roads in the run-up to last September's general elections.

Wandi said a company called Jiangsu Wujin Corporation was awarded a contract to upgrade urban roads in Kabwe and Kapiri Mposhi at a cost of over K117 billion and that the Chinese company submitted a fake security bond and obtained a K5 billion advance payment on the project.

Wandi said due diligence could have been taken to avoid all this but that the problem was that corruption results in individuals disregarding the procurement law, tendering rules and regulations.

She further said there was need to encourage people to report cases of corruption through sensitisation on the public interest disclosure (protection of whistle-blowers Act) number 4 of 2010.

Wandi said there was need to increase funding to the ACC and expand the organisational structure to decentralise the operations to the district level.

Labels: ACC, AUDITOR GENERAL, DECENTRALIZATION, ROSEWIN WANDI

posted by MrK @ 2:55 PM