Parliamentary committee sends back Accountant General over Ifims

Budget and Finance Committee of parliament has sent back accountant general Clyton Chimombo and his team from a meeting for failure to give substantive answers on the decision by the government to buy integrated financial information management system (ifims) from Zimbabwe.

Budget and Finance Committee chairman Rhino Chiphiko said Chimombo and his team seemed not to know what they were talking about when they were called to explain why the government intended to buy the ifimis from a Zimbabwean company, Twenty Third Century Systems which came third during the evaluation process.

“We sent the accountant general back because he failed to answer most of our questions on the procurement of the ifims. We have given him two weeks to come back to us and make a substantive presentation,” said Chiphiko.

He said the committee members found that the responses by the accountant general lacked substance.

Chiphiko also accused the government of rushing to procure the ifims before a law has been enacted on the use of the new ifims, saying this might give loopholes to the users.

“We are of the view that the relevant law should have been passed first otherwise without the law, the ifims can be abused as has been the case before,” he said.

He said parliament was ready to pass such a legislation to prevent the plunder of public resources, saying as if now, public money continued to be stolen willy-nilly at Capital Hill, the seat of government.

Chimombo, in an interview, played down the issue that his team was sent back because of lack of substantive responses to the committee.

“The committee found that we had a very good meeting but time was not on our side and decided that we should come back and continue with our good interaction,” he said.

He said his office will come back with substantive responses in two weeks.

Chimombo said the governmet will use K5 billion to roll out the new ifims in full.

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