Speaker slams Public Accounts Committee

Speaker of the Parliament Richard Msowoya has said diminished oversight role and lack of knowledge of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament has contributed to rampant defrauding of government funds such as Cashgate.

The Speaker made the remarks at the start of a two-day orientation for the committee members in Salima yesterday where he asked the new 20-member PAC to exercise its oversight role diligently so that the country never experiences theft and fraud such as Cashgate again.

Msowoya said the committee should have scrutinised audit reports such as the 2008/09 one which had 73 audit queries, 11 of which had elements of fraud and theft, but nothing was done about it.

He said: “Now there is an increase of incidents and amounts being defrauded from government, but the public is wondering, what is PAC doing about it? As Speaker, I would like to see a PAC that is more responsive to the public.”

Msowoya added that limited understanding of issues by PAC had undermined the strength of the committee using an example of the K92 billion audit query into the Central Payment System, which the National Audit Office (NAO) carried out commissioned by Treasury covering the period 2009 and part of 2012.

“The audit query did not cover all the ministries it was supposed to.

“What figure would we be looking at if we had done what we were supposed to do? Would we have Cashgate in 2013? As PAC, we failed the nation,” Msowoya said.

Msowoya said he was not attacking the previous committees, but urging the new one to carry out its role scrutinising public expenditure and not to interview suspects in the fraudulent activities.

It was during the height of Cashgate investigations that the PAC before Parliament was dissolved wanted to interview individuals such as former Ministry of Finance budget director Paul Mphwiyo and demanded that the list of names of individuals and companies involved should be released to the public.

Chairperson of the new committee, Alekeni Menyani, said the orientation was timely because there was a lot of work to be done to cover the backlog and review of audit reports before the committee from the previous Parliament.

“We know Malawians have high expectations in view of the financial scandals that have occurred,” he said.

Auditor General Stephenson Kamphasa said the new committee had a lot of work to do, specifically three performance audits and a backlog of audit reports going back to 2011/12 which have been submitted to the Minister of Finance.

The orientation programme comprised discussions on legislation guiding the committee’s work such as Public Finance Management Act, Public Audit Act and Public Procurement Act, the role of the Auditor General and reforms the National Audit Office is undergoing.