Finance Ministry using unauthorised public funds, mishandling tender processes and payments to service providers – Parliament
HONOURABLE: Charlton Hwende
PARLIAMENTARY Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson Charlton Hwende says the Finance ministry has, over the years, continued to use unauthorised public funds.
The Ministry officials were supposed to appear before the PAC committee Monday but did not show up due to other commitments.
Hwende told journalists that it had also failed to submit treasury minutes to Parliament for quite some time, with no explanation.
“Finance Ministry continues to spend way more than what Parliament appropriates without coming back to Parliament.
“We have not entertained any condemnation views from the ministry for quite some time, and the most worrying thing is that they have not been submitting Treasury Minutes to Parliament,” Hwende said.
Hwende highlighted that the ministry was obliged by the laws of the country to respond to the recommendations through treasury minutes, and it had not submitted any.
“Those are the issues that we want to deal with, apart from the general issues that the auditor general raised.
“They have got several companies that they have been paying to supply, but they failed to get them to deliver.
“There are a lot of issues that have been raised, and they need the accounting officer himself to be there, so that he can explain, because this is the Minister of Finance, and we are talking about, an auditor general report that deals with public expenditures, the budget itself,” Hwende added.
“We have now resolved that they must appear next week on Monday.
“The Permanent Secretary has committed that he would appear, so we’ll be meeting them on Monday.
“As a committee, we are interested mainly in the way the ministry has been running its affairs. As you see, we have not yet supplemented budgets over the years.”
Issues of tender renewals, direct payments to service providers have been mishandled, according to the PAC chairperson.
“It’s like they are running a separate budget outside Parliament.”
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