Malawi gov’t suppliers yet to receive their pay
The financial mess at Capitol Hill continues to take its toll on public sector operations, with suppliers of goods and services being subjected to delayed payments.
The delay has been caused by on-going investigations at the Accountant General’s Department.
This also follows the suspension of the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS). It was discovered that some government employees were manipulating the system to rob Capitol Hill of the much needed tax payer’s money.
Currently, government is processing payments manually.
“The Malawi government wishes to apologize for the delay in processing of government cheques for various goods and services.
“Since the arrest of one of the signatories in September 2013, the Reserve Bank of Malawi has been refusing to honour any cheques bearing the signature of the arrested official. The decision of the central bank is quite acceptable and intended to safeguard public funds,” said one of the Ministry of Finance officials, who opted for anonymity.
He further said at the time of the arrest of the government cheques signatories, the officer had already signed several cheques which were already collected by various departments and ministries and were due to be presented to commercial banks.
He said some of the cheques were for goods and services, whilst others were salaries and wages for several ministries and departments.
“The Accountant General started the process of recalling these cheques since the day of the arrest and replacing them with new cheques.
“Since government is currently processing all cheques manually, the process of writing new cheques is therefore taking more time than was the case before,” he claimed.
According to the treasury, IFMIS will be up and running in 5 weeks time as Local and international ICT experts are working round the clock to enhance its security features.
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