Cashgate: Forensic audit report to delay, says government
Malawians will have to wait for an additional two weeks before a report of the preliminary forensic audit into the loss of billions of taxpayers’ money at Capital Hill is revealed.
Minister of Information Brown Mpinganjira alongside Auditor General Stephenson Kamphasa and team leader of international forensic auditors Mark Sullivan disclosed this at a press briefing in the capital Lilongwe on Wednesday.
The two-week delay was attributed to the legal processes some banks, specifically Nedbank and First Merchant Bank, required before they could release information.
Lack of cooperation from estate agents and private property valuers also contributed to the delay.
Mpinganjira said the audit team from the National Audit Office (NAO) was given a deadline of January 31 to complete and release the report.
“But due to challenges beyond their control, they have extended the deadline by two weeks because people they were working with are outside government circles,” Mpinganjira said.
However, the report which covers how millions were lost between April and September 2013, would only be made available to the public at the end of two weeks.
The Auditor General could, however, not fault the banks and estate agents for not cooperating, saying all they did was to demand that legal procedures be followed before releasing information.
Kamphasa said: “I want to make it clear that we will have to follow the legal procedures and the owner of the report would pass over the report to the relevant authorities including Parliament who would make it public.”
However, it is not clear when Parliament is expected to meet.
This preliminary forensic audit covers five months and has been funded by Britain while the comprehensive audit covering 2005 to March 2013 would be done with funding from Germany.
I doubt it if we’ll see this report before elections. Now they are talking about parliamentary approval. If we really cared about procedures, JB would not be busy distributing maize which was paid for thru a budget not approved by the parliament. Mxii!!
Why was the report sent to IMF yet primary beneficiaries are Malawians? What is in the executive summary which is making government jitter? If the truth is deliberately delayed questions start to flow as to why a straight forward report is being shielded to be benefited by primary beneficiaries? How can Malawians take to task their government on cashgate when they don’t have this evidence from the forensic report? Lutepo implicated Mpinganjira on the same issue and why should a suspect be a spokesperson of the issue in which he is involved? The neutrality of reporting on this sensitive matter coupled with transparency and accountability tenets should have been adhered to in a bid to quell off suspicion which is growing at an exploding rate ever since Nkwezalamba decided to first forward the report to secondary and not primary beneficiaries. God is watching and Malawians are waiting for answers so true from God and not from government whose public trust has enormously dwindled since the fateful day the cashgate scandal was born.
Jezebel corrupted the most nobble men,far it be with malawi, she will bear it herself.we know where we coming from and we know where we are going