Parliament pushing for Auditor General’s autonomy: Budget allocations increased for NAO
Chairperson of the parliamentary Public Account Committee (PAC) Alekeni Menyani said they are pushing for the autonomy of the office of the Auditor General as recommended in the review by KPMG international audit private firm.
Menyani said they are pushing for the autonomy to allow Auditor General to retain his own staff at the National Audit Office (NAO) who he can discipline “in order to improve on record maintenance.”
He also expressed concern with the delay by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) delays to comment an audit at NAO.
KPMG exposed financial irregularities at NAO between 2010-2013 of about K200 million, according to a review it conducted last year.
Meanwhile, in the mid-term budget review, NAO has received an upward adjustment allocation.
Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe said the increase of resources will support the audit agency in the process of probing the ‘grand corruption’ of K236 billion ‘Cashgate’.
Allocation for NAO has been moved from initial K1, 520,174, 950 to K2, 077,326,508,
“The National Audit Office needs to bring in auditors for the so-called K577 billion (K236bn) cashgate and for other audits and that is why we have increased their allocation,” said Gondwe.
Parliament has since approved 29 out of 52 budgetary allocations to ministries, departments and agencies.
PAC was supposed to release the names of so called cashgate culprits some time back and was literary 100% sure of doing. What happen you have suddenly gone quite? so we were right you are just a barking dog with no teeth to bite.