State House blocking Auditor General, Malawi MPs told

Auditor General Stepheson Kamphasa has told parliamentarians that State House is frustrating government auditors from conducting the headcount for staff at the State residences.

Kamphasa made the disclosure when he appeared before joint parliamentary committees of Public Accounts and Budget during the cluster meetings.

According to Standing Order 136, after the presentation if the budget, parliamentary committees go into breakaway sessions where they scrutinise the proposed allocations each ministry or department presented in the national budget.

Peter Dimba MP for Lilongwe South for Malawi Congress Party (MCP) asked if the Auditor General has done a headcount of staff at State House, fearing there could be many ghost workers.

But Kamphasa said his office is facing hurdles to conduct headcount at State House, saying authorities were always elusive.

“They always say we are busy,” said Kamphasa.

He, however, told parliamentarians that his office managed to do headcount at Malawi Defence Force and State spy agency NIB.

Kamphasa said the results if the headcount revealed that the civil service payroll was infested with a lot of ghost workers.

He said about 2300 ghost workers have since been deleted from the payroll.

Kamphasa also lamented lack of resources which compromised professional work.