Parliament to move acb on audit names
Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has resolved to summon the director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) to disclose names of individuals and companies being investigated following the 2009 to 2014 forensic audit.
The committee, which made the resolution at the end of its two-week meeting in Lilongwe, observed that such a disclosure would ease public pressure and anxiety on the issue.
After the committee scrutinised the RSM Risk Assurance audit report on Thursday, members concluded that the Auditor General had done his part in exposing the rot in government through the audits, but that the ACB was the only institution which could indicate the way forward.
The committee has since urged the public to direct their focus on ACB whose inaction and general conduct are allegedly reflecting badly on the Auditor General.
Speaking in an interview, chairperson of the committee, Alekeni Menyani, said the committee believed it was time the ACB demonstrated that it can be trusted by the public and that it has teeth to bite and save both its image and integrity.
He said the contents of the report were forwarded to the ACB, which upon review of its mandate has investigative and prosecutorial authority that it can exercise with the help of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
Said Menyani: “After the committee members looked at the RSM report, they came to the following conclusions that the conduct of the ACB has created unnecessary public anxiety and pressure in behaving as a private prosecutor and that the ACB be summoned immediately to appear before the committee and furnish the same with the information that can ease public anxiety and anger.”
The committee’s secretariat wrote ACB on Friday to seek an audience to resolve the matter, Menyani confirmed.
The committee wants the ACB to periodically highlight stages in the investigation and immediately release names of those businesses that have been cleared.
He added that the committee felt that the manner in which the ACB has chosen to handle matters is reflecting badly not only on the executive, but also the Auditor General and also the committee as it is behaving as if there is something to hide.
“The ACB is, therefore, encouraged to use relevant laws that it has used in the past to disclose names of entities it was investigating on to ease public pressure and anxiety over the issue.”
The Auditor General has kept under wraps names of suspected culprits in the K236 billion Cashgate, but the audit report has disclosed that there are businesses linked to families which took part in rampant bid rigging and that 13 files have since been handed over to the ACB for further investigations.
In July, the Attorney General advised the National Audit Office that publishing names of individuals and companies named in the audit report could have legal implications and derail investigations.
The shooting of former Ministry of Finance budget director Paul Mphwiyo outside the gate of his Area 43 residence in Lilongwe on September 13 2013 led to revelations of the plunder of public resources at Capital Hill widely known as Cashgate.
Former president Joyce Banda ordered an audit which British forensic audit firm Baker Tilly undertook covering the period between April and September 2013. The audit established that about K24 billion was siphoned from public coffers through dubious payments, inflated invoices and goods or services never rendered.
In May last year, a financial analysis report by audit and business advisory firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) also established that about K577 billion in public funds could not be reconciliated between 2009 and December 31 2014.
However, earlier this year, another British firm, RSM Risk Assurance reported that out of the K577 billion amount, it was K236 billion that remained to be accounted for. n
