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Auditor General vows to ‘dig a little deeper' into oil scams

Auditor General vows to ‘dig a little deeper' into oil scams
By Moses Kuwema
Fri 13 Apr. 2012, 13:27 CAT

AUDITOR General Anna Chifungula says her office will dig a little deeper and get more evidence for the investigative wings once they read the report on the Energy Regulation Board and the oil procurement process.

And former Public Accounts Committee chairman Emmanuel Hachipuka says investigative wings should delve into the oil procurement contracts and ensure the culprits were brought to book.

Commenting on revelations by Wynter Kabimba, the chairman of the commission of inquiry into the Energy Regulation Board and oil procurement, in which the government lost about K2 trillion through corruption between 2007 and 2011, Chifungula said her office was active to the revelations.

"Normally what we do is we will look at the report as well when it is issued and see if there are some areas which we can dig a little bit deeper so that we can get more evidence for our investigative wings. At face value, it's difficult to find some of these things, you have to do other types of audits," Chifungula said.

Chifungula said most of the issues raised in the revelations were done through tendering and other procedures.

"So they would come out if it is in financial reports, they will come out as normal because there will be proper tender procedures followed and everything will be in line but then the question now which comes in is value for money. Did we get value for what we got? So those are a little bit complicated because you need to do other types of audits like forensic and investigations. You have to do performance audits in order to get to those kinds of things," she said.

And Hachipuka who served as PAC chairman during the period in question, said K2 trillion or any other sum for that matter was too large for the country to afford to lose.

He said it was important for investigative wings to delve into the matter and as recommended by the commission, give Cabinet more details and pursue the contracts to the letter.

"It is very important, it's a lot of money to let go. I am very disappointed that it is coming out so late. I think it should have been picked up much earlier. Certainly, I know that PAC can simply talk about it but I think the Auditor General has also powers to have referred these matters to the necessary security wings of the government beyond her office. But I am not privy to know exactly where the omission was, whether they were covered. But really for me, it is a serious revelation which deserves follow up," Hachipuka said.

Hachipuka further said he did not recall covering the Auditor General's report on contracts in question.

"Anna Chifungula and her team are quite a very thorough group, it is possible those were not in the recent past. Many discussions in the PAC have been based on audit reports and this to me seems to be a special audit. In fact, I am surprised that the commission under Wynter Kabimba was focusing specifically on that, but I think it was a correct thing to do. I was a member of the PAC for many years but I don't remember us dealing specifically with this and in any case I am happy that these have come to light and whilst it is the commission of inquiry, I would imagine that cabinet will ask the Auditor General to specifically go in more details," he said.

Meanwhile, Chifungula said the audit report on the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC) has been completed.

"They have basically finished and are compiling the report. We should have the first draft presented to the CEEC and then after they respond to the findings, that's when we can now conclude the report," she said.

In February this year, secretary to the treasury, Fredson Yamba, suspended the disbursing of funds to the CEEC in order to reorganise the institution.

A forensic audit was further instituted to look at the CEEC operations.

Labels: ANNA CHIFUNGULA, AUDITOR GENERAL, CORRUPTION, ERB, OIL, WYNTER KABIMBA

posted by MrK @ 3:32 PM