TIZ ANALYSIS OF 2012 AUDITOR GENERALS REPORT Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) bemoans the continued losses and misappropriation of public funds that have yet again being revealed in the 2012 Auditor General’s report. While TIZ commends the Auditor General’s Office for the good work done, we are worried that the continued lack of accountability of public funds is not showing any signs of major improvements. The Auditor General’s report has demonstrated that there are various ways in which Zambia has continued losing public funds. TIZ has analyzed the 14 areas in which public funds were lost and we bemoan the non accountability of such colossal sums of public funds. TIZ has noted that in the 14 areas, only insignificant reductions were recorded in 8 areas compared to increases in 6 areas that worsened. We note that misappropriation of funds has reduced by about half, looking at the figures in 2011 (K1,060,362,947) and 2012 (K 463,631,579). However, misappropriation of funds should not be existent as K 463,631,579 is a huge sum of public funds to go down the drain. In our view, these funds can make a difference if properly utilized on a lot of constructive issues. We also have noted that loss of public funds through ‘irregular payments’ has also reduced by slightly over K 2 billion, from K 4,233,314,411 in 2011 to K 1,438,527,391 in 2012. It should be noted that despite these insignificant improvements that the Zambian people are still losing public funds. However, we note with serious concern that in 6 of these areas, the loss of funds has increased to alarming levels. For instance, the Zambian public subjected to high risks of unvouched expenditure has rapidly increased to K 553,142,715,946 in 2012 compared to K 77,014,932,341 in 2011, which is a frightening increase. As if that is not enough, the non accountability of public funds through ‘No submission of expenditure returns’ has increased between 2011 and 2012 by over from K 27,083,333,334 in 2011, to K 107,765,375,773 in 2012. Loss of funds through ‘over payments’ have increased between 2011 and 2012 from K 6,000,000 in 2011 to K 206,913,870 in 2012. It is also very embarrassing to see a major increase in unaccounted for stores increasing from K22billion in 2011 to K43billion in 2012. This might point to a breakdown of civil service procedures where officials may have opted to start converting government stores goods into private property which ordinary citizens may easily associate to be outright thefts. As TIZ, we urge the government to safe guard public resources in every way possible. What worries us most is that the culprits for the loss of these funds are known, but the law does not seem to catch up with them. We recommend that all controlling officers who are not in control of public resources should be dismissed in public interest as we cannot allow such a situation to continue year in year out. We further demand that culprits associated with most of these issues should also be dealt with severely. Goodwell Lungu EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 09:18:31 +0000
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