Local councils to be audited from 2010
Financial transactions of district councils are set to undergo scrutiny from the National Audit Office (NAO) dating back to three years ago.
The development comes hot on the heels of a forensic audit into government ministries and departments following revelations of plunder of public resources at Capital Hill widely known as Cashgate.
Both the Local Government Finance Committee (NLGC) and NAO confirmed that funding for the audit has been sourced from Irish Aid. They said the audit will cover the period from 2010/11 to 2012/2013.
“This audit will basically target performance annual accounts of councils going back the past two years. We have secured funding for the period 2012/13 from KfW, but this one will start immediately,” NLGC executive director Wezi Mjojo said in an interview yesterday.
Previously, NLGC has been engaging NAO to carry out investigative audits of specific local councils following complaints of mismanagement of resources. The affected councils included Lilongwe City Council where it was alleged that the former chief executive officer, Kelvin Mmangisa, illegally withdrew K23 million in perks and that he withdrew K497 000 in allowances for a trip to Italy.
NAO corporate communications officer Thomas Chafunya yesterday confirmed that Irish Aid had made available about K76 million to be used in auditing the accounts of the local councils which were not audited in the financial years 2010/11 and 2011/12.
Said Chafunya: “This development means that the Auditor General will now reduce the backlog of audit arrears with the quest to make sure that there is proper accountability of public funds being handled at the Local Council level.
“You will agree with me that the Local Councils do take control of more financial resources now due to the decentralisation that Malawi Government is implementing hence, the need to be current and up to date in all audits.”
But he said the audits being carried out had nothing to do with any suspected Cashgate transactions in the councils; rather this was scheduled audit process which was waiting for funding.
