PAC grills M’mbelwa Council about K9.6m audit queries

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Wednesday sent back officials of the M’mbelwa (Mzimba) District Council to complete the process of checking authenticity of their evidence on three audit queries in which the council is faulted to have spent about K9.586 million (US$2, 755) without supporting documentation and against set procedures.

Mzimba district commissioner Moses Chimphepo had to endure the strict questioning of the committee on why there were inconsistencies in the documents his council submitted to the committee on the audit queries in light of the Auditor General Stevenson Kamphasa’s denial that he cleared the documents.

One of the audit queries involves payment of subsistence allowances and leave grants amounting to K6 915 100 (US$19, 049.86) without signatures of recipients on payment vouchers.

Chimphepo said the respective leave grants and allowances signing sheets were still in education zones and that some sheets were filed separately from the vouchers at the time of the audit.

This was found to be against Treasury instructions which require that subsistence allowances must be signed for by the recipients as a way of acknowledging receipt.

“We now have got all the receipted payment vouchers for the period under review. This is evidence that teachers received their leave grants and also that members received their allowances. The council has got more of these records on file which is ready for verification and inspection,” said Chimphepo.

But the committee members faulted Chimphepo that the council could not just submit the queried signing sheets to the committee without exhausting the process of verifying authenticity of the sheets with the Auditor General who raised the audit queries.

While Chimphepo insisted that his officers travelled from Mzimba to present the documents for verification at the National Audit Office (NAO) in Lilongwe, the Auditor General denied verifying the documents, saying his office always issues a written notice confirming verification of documents on audit queries.