PAC To Meet Speaker On Audit Backlog After Encounter With Clerk Fail To Yield Results

Menyani 

The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament want to consult Speaker on mapping way forward how the committee will handle audit reports that span a period of nine years.

The Committee intends to request Speaker of the National Assembly to appear before the committee this evening after the committee had in the morning met with Clerk of Parliament over the same issue.

The Clerk was summoned to justify why the committee was allocated with only a week period to scrutinize the audits of nine years from 35 Councils. However, it seems the encounter was not fruitful as the Committee now wants to hear from the Speaker.

“The issue is not whether for us to continue with meetings or not but the issue is as whether they think it is practicable for us to deal with a backlog of nine years in a period of nine years so the Speaker must pronounce himself on this and commit himself to the prioritization of the work that directly benefit Malawians.” said Alekeni Menyani, Chairperson for the Committee

Committee members have demanded to meet the speaker as he is the political head of the institution who has responsibility to prioritize the work that translate directly into the benefit of Malawians.

Speaking of what the committee had discussed with the Clerk, Menyani said; “We were examining whether it is practical that all these things be dealt with in five working days and, the consensus has been reached that that is not practical and we need to find the way forward.”

He explained; “The Auditor General presented to the Clerk of Parliament a backlog of work that spans a period of nine years and has to be dealt with by the Public Accounts Committee. Despite the issues that are spanning the period of nine years, there are also issues of head count in the ministry of Agriculture, health and all those issues”

He said the reason the committee wants ample time to look at the nine year period audits is because they want to finish all the past audits so that they begin to work on the new audits.

He said in 2016 there is no need for the Committee to be looking at old audits and therefore having an ample time to finish old audits will enable them to pursue with recent matters.

“At this point it means that if someone steals money today they will be questioned in nine years time. But that is not good.” said Menyani

PAC Suspects Billions Stolen Between 2008 to 2010 In District Council's

Parliament suspect billions of Kwacha's were stolen between 2008 and 2010 in most Districts, Towns and City Councils as it has discovered that a lot of payment vouchers and supporting documents for some expenditures  are still missing.

Some district councils are appearing before the Committee to respond to audit of 2008 to 2010 with focus on missing payment vouchers highlighted in the audit reports under the period. The committee is following up on unaccounted purchases of fuel, other materials for projects and subsistence allowances among others as there were no supporting documents during the time of auditing.

However, it has been established that although the documents went missing during the material time of auditing, during the appearance to Public Accounts Committee the papers are being brought to auditor general for certification.

Committee has been informed that some of the missing documents have been traced and have now been certified by the Auditor General. The common justifications given to the Committee has been that most documents could not be traced at time of audit due to misplacement. However, still some districts have failed to trace the payment vouchers of which the committee has further demanded the Councils to produce the documents.

Kamlepo

Deputy Chairperson for Public Accounts Committee, Kamlepo Kalua said the missing of vouchers raises eyebrows as this clearly suggests that rampant fraudulent happened during that period and further suggests occurrence of the practice still taking place now.

“What we have discovered is, there are number of loopholes, number of inefficiencies that took place and we could say that was a direct sort of link into looting public resources and most of the accounts that we have seen are in billions.” he said

Having gone through only few districts and seen number of missing documents under the period, Kalua projected that by the end of the week meeting with remaining districts, the total amount of money not accounted for during that period could accumulate into billions of Kwacha's.

“So, we have seen that we have a long way to go” he added

As committee is investigating 2008 to 2010 audits which are old documents though very important exercise, however the process is subjecting new office bearers for the councils to explain things they never done or things that happened before them.

Kalua agrees that this should change and that the Committee should indeed begin to track audits which are very recent.

“We feel this should not be the case now, we should be dealing with the current ones and not the old ones." He said, "Because most DCs are answering to queries that were not party to and are struggling to give information to something they never committed. I hope in future we will be able to improve because this backlog is not doing this country any favour at all. We need to do something current, we need to actually do the 'spot on' kind of investigations so that together we are able to improve the deficiencies as well as incompetencies in all districts, town and city councils.”

He then observed that to enable the committee to investigate recent audits, Government must adequately finance the Auditor General Office so that it does audits in good time and that the Public Accounts Committee must also be supported because it has a very important role of monitoring how public money are being spent.

Mchinji district officials were sent back on Wednesday for failure to account to Millions of Kwachas estimated close to K500 million. During the time of auditing Mchinji failed to produce receipts for the fuel purchase for ambulance, subsistence allowances, among others.

"To have K500 million for 8 years ago is quite alarming to the Committee and calls for number of actions to be undertaken." Reacted Kamlepo during the meeting

"In that respect it is the view of the Committee we cannot continue with our sessions with you. The Committee regretably sends you back till we meet st a set date " He ruled 

The Committee demanded the representatives to bring in the future meeting, a former controlling officer, former sector head of health and the person who was handling the finances at that time.

Ntcheu district officials were also sent back for appearing before the Committee without controlling officers (District Commissioners) who were running the office during the audited period as it was observed that it could have been a waste of time to ask incumbent officers to go into details of things that happened before them.

Nkhotakota DC Urge Parliamentarians To Lobby For More Funding For District Councils

Mkandawire

District Commissioner (DC) for Nkhotakota district has asked the legislatures to lobby for more funding for the district councils to enable them have enough resources for development activities.

Felix Mkandawire, DC for Nkhotakota made the plea during appearance before Public Accounts Committee of Parliament on Wednesday where he was responding to 2008 to 2010 financial audits for Dowa District, time he was District Commissioner for the district.

Mkandawire said budget allocation challenges facing councils are not strange among legislatures and therefore they must work together in lobbying for timely and adequate funding.

“We stay together with Members of Parliament who are also members of the District Council, and we see the problems that people faces every day, so, we need to address the needs for development and service delivery” he clarified in an interview

"Since we stay together in the district Councils, we should lobby together that more of the resources are developed from the centre so that the decentralization and devolution that we are talking about as a country should be realistic and should really be felt at district level." He said 

He bemoaned that councils continue to receive inadequate funding yet they are expected to provide various services and implement development projects for the people. He noted that the funding they get in councils is mainly for the Other Recurrent Transactions (ORT).

“It makes sense that most of the money that is allocated in the national budget should go direct to the district councils because we are closest to the people.” he emphasised 

He then proposed change for current set up where councils waits for the funds to come from the Capital Hill. He opted for the empowerment of councils whereby they are given powers to manage funds allocated in the national budget

“The devolution and decentralization will only be appreciated by the masses if they lead to improvement in service delivery and this can only be delivered by the councils if the majority of resources are decentralized to the district councils.”

UN Urges Malawi To End Mob Killings

The United Nations (UN) has asked Malawi Government to put to an end of the ever increasing mob killings happening across the country.

Malawians have resorted to take law into their hands through a gruesome approach where suspected criminals are either being condemned by stoning to death or set on fire.

Since early this year, at least nine separate incidents leading to the death of 16 people have been reported and the problem seem to be worse in the Central and Southern regions of the country.

In a statement dated April 5th, 2016, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Cécile Pouilly said UN is concerned about the increasing number of people killed in mob attacks and has asked the country to make efforts to end these cases.

"We urge the authorities in Malawi to act promptly to identify and prosecute those involved in mob killings, and to offer remedy to victims." Pouilly said in the statement

"We also urge the authorities to address the root causes of such attacks and to launch an awareness campaign to encourage people to report crimes to police rather than take justice into their own hands." Adds the plea

However the UN has since welcomed President Arthur Peter Mutharika's 30 March statement that strongly condemning these crimes. Mutharika called on all citizens, NGOs and Government agencies to support the Malawi police in its fight against mob killings in accordance with the rule of law.

It is reported that On 28 March, a mob stormed a police station, taking a man accused of murder out of his cell and killing him in Dedza, and that seven people accused of possessing human bones were attacked and set on fire by a mob on 1 March in the district of Nsanje.

On 25 January, four elderly members of the same family were also beaten and killed by a mob in Neno District, after being accused of using witchcraft to kill a 17-year-old woman by lightning. In a separate incident, on 3 February, residents of a township in Blantyre, set fire to a Court, apparently out of fear that it would grant bail to three men suspected of murder.

Malawi Govt. Ready To Prevent, Manage Diabetes

Dr. Kaponda

Malawi says it is prepared to fight diabetes which at present affects nearly 6% of the country's population.

Dr. Kaponda Masiye Programme Manager for Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health in the Ministry of Health said diabetes remains a big issue and therefore the Ministry has put in place number of measures including trainings for health personnel's on management and prevention of diabetes.

"When it comes to Malawi, diabetes is a big issue. There was a study that was done in 2009 which showed that around 5.6% Malawians are diabetic. So, if you look at this figure in a country where we have a population of about 17 million, it is a big figure.” he said

"Government has a fully fledged working non-communicable disease and mental health unit. This unit is well prepared, because what we have done right now is that we have a project that is funded by World Diabetes Foundation where we are training health workers on how to diagnose, how to manage, prevent and control diabetes.” He explained

He mentioned that trainings have been conducted in the Northern Region of the country and they are now beginning trainings in the Central Region. He estimated that 1000 health workers will get training by the end of the project where they will be able to manage the diseases once they come into health facilities.

“As a country, as Government of Malawi we are ready in detecting and managing and even preventing diabetes.”

Journalists also were trained on diabetes 

On Tuesday, Malawi Government in collaboration with World Health Organization also conducted workshop for Journalists on issues around diabetes to enable them give correct awareness messages as the World on 7th April,  commemorates World Health Day with the theme: Beat Diabetes.

MRA Asks Business Persons To Avoid Corrupt Practices In Borders

Hilda Mkandawire: MRA

Business people in the country have been asked to join forces with Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) in the fight against corruption in country's borders.

The call was made over the weekend during the meeting organised by the Small and Medium Enterprise Association (SMEA)-Lilongwe chapter on issues about tax.

SMEA members raised alarm on incessant corrupt practices among some MRA officers who often ask for bribes from business persons if they want to have their goods cleared at boarders in good time.

"Most officers delay processes and can't help without us pay them something" reported one of the participants in the meeting 

Responding to this problem, Hilda Mkandawire, the Public Relations Specialist at MRA pleaded with participants and all business persons in the country not to tolerate this unbecoming practice and encouraged every tax payer to report to MRA, any officer who may ask them to pay bribe.

"Don't give money to MRA officers as bribe. MRA does not condone corruption." She warned

"If our officers ask for bribes you should not accept this practice because an MRA officer is paid at the end of the month and please do not pay bribes for them to assist you. It is their job to assist you.” she emphasized 

Mkandawire further cautioned that bribes are vices that haunt growth of businesses as significant part of profit is used to pay for the corrupt officers. She added that this further derail development as Government also fail to correct tax from struggling businesses.

"Please report them to us, and we will deal with it. Remember, without your businesses this country cannot prosper." She added

Other concerns raised by the business persons of which MRA has committed forward them to Management for consideration are bad attitude of officers when helping business persons, delays when clearing goods and interruptions at roadblocks among others.

“Most of them have requested us to have some privacy when they want to discuss their tax issues with MRA officers. We have promised them that we are taking up this request to management to look at this and see whether we can set up some interview rooms in our stations. It is true that when somebody has an issue you wouldn’t want to discuss an issue where there are a lot of people. But this is something that needs to be taken to the management and we will see how management will handle that one.” said Mkandawire later in an interview

“But, we ask all business persons to be compliant so that whenever they pass through the borders they are not delayed. And they should always not avoid tax at boarders and this will even reduce their delays in roadblocks because many people do not declare all their goods at boarders so the roadblocks assists us to verify if the traders have paid tax for all their imported goods." She said

The meeting looked at all areas of domestic, customs and excise tax

One of the participants, Danny Zenengeya who trade as Double Options Investments said was satisfied with most answers from MRA. He said the meeting has helped him to understand reasons why some challenges were happening to him when importing goods and how he is going to avoid them.

"The meeting has been fruit full and we have been advised to report any matters of concern immediately to their offices and also that we have to follow the right channels and pay the tax” he said and urged MRA to improve on time frame issues because some delays in issuance of invoices and finalising some processes prevents him from meeting deadlines of delivering goods and attending to his business.

Jacob Chikoya

Chairperson for Small and Medium Enterprise Association (SMEA) for Lilongwe chapter, Jacob Chikoya who works for Printers Systems said the group decided to invite MRA to enlighten them more on tax related matters because most of the businesses encounter a lot of challenges with MRA officers.

“In other words we would like to be more tax compliance without being penalized as it is the case right now.” he said, then added; “We are very satisfied with their response but listening to them presenting what tax is all about is not a big problem but the problem is only that the officers on the ground they make it difficult for us."

Chikoya has also urged fellow business persons to work together in order to have a better force when negotiating to Government and other enforcement agencies, various issues haunting their businesses.

“We also like to invite all the business people to come forward and join SMEA because we understand that if you have one voice and talking to Government and all other relevant authorities, we can achieve more” pleaded Jacob Chikoya 

Changes In Parliament: Full Day Wednesdays For Bills, Impeachment Procedures For Presidents Applys To Deputy Speakers

Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament has again made some significant proposals to ensure that the business of the House is conducted for benefit of Malawians.

The weeklong meeting of the Committee has mainly made changes that are minimizing amount of time wasted during the period of National Assembly Meeting. 

Chakhwantha

Chairperson for the Committee, Peter Chakhwantha said in an interview after finalizing the review exercise of some of Standing Orders that the changes made are of great significance.

“Of greater significance that so far, what we have done is to review areas that we felt that Parliament has really struggled in terms of its procedural matters." He said

"You recall that there was a time when the Speaker had bemoaned the fact that a lot of hours are wasted with some breaks in between the meetings and there was a need for us to relook into time schedules.”

Chakhwantha then disclosed that the Committee has discussed and agreed that the sitting for Wednesdays must start from 09:30 hours till 17:00 hours instead of starting from 14:00 hours as it is the case now.  

“Another thing for Wednesday is that we have decided that it will just be a day for bills, so, Government will be allowed to flood the House with many bills as they would want.” He said 

And for Thursday’s, he continued “is Private members day, but what we have noted is that Government would actually flood the House with a lot of business on Questions to Ministers for Oral replies, so, we have decided to scrap off that one and it will just be dedicated for Private Members Business. And by this we are talking about Private Members Motions, Bills and whatever any private member would want to bring. So effectively it is taking away that part where Government would still want to have a hand in the business of Thursday.”

Chakhwantha said since members come from far places, the committee has resolved to maintain time for starting business for Mondays which is 14:00 hours and that on Fridays time to adjourn the House remains at 12:30 hours to allow members travel back home in god time. 

“We have also looked into the issue of absenteeism. We have mandated the secretariat as our consultant to come up with stiff measures that are going to arrest this malpractice where members would pocket allowances and yet not attend the deliberations. So we are going to come up with proper measures to arrest that development.” He confirmed

Among others, Chakhwantha said the committee has also proposed that times for health breaks be minimized to allow more participation of members in debates as well putting in the Standing Orders the ‘Cluster System’ a newly adopted procedure for budget scrutiny.

On Impeachment of Deputy Speakers he said the Committee also come up with the impeachment procedures of Deputy Speakers by adopting and copy what is already provided under the procedures for the removal of Speaker and President. 

He mentioned that these procedures will be applied with emphasis on the “right to be heard first before one is condemned.”

He then clarified; “We started to discuss some of the procedures around this issue some time back in July 2015. It is mot true that we just started this because of some issues that happened with our current deputy speakers.”