* After paying back, they must still be prosecuted
* We need timely audits of all government departments every year end
* The audit report was unnecessarily funded since the Ombudsman already did it, and twice
By Duncan Mlanjira
The investigative audit which the government tasked the National Audit Office to carry out on the management of the K6.2 billion CoVID-19 funds has recommended that those who took part in the malpractices that resulted in the loss of money should be made to pay back the money.
The audit report further asks the government to ensure that all malpractices that are criminal in nature should be handed over to law enforcement agencies for further action and attention.
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Reacting to this on social media, members of the public agrees but adds to say that after paying back, the culprits must still be prosecuted while others hoped the government shall not sit on these recommendations.
Ernest Lundu said: “We need timely audits of all government departments every year end and take corrective action if we’re going to deal with this malfeasance.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg, how the government deals with this will be an indication of whether the administration is ready or not to take the country forward and improve efficiency.”
Tito Saikonde questioned what mechanisms the government shall apply for the money to be paid back, saying “Malawi is good in making decisions but failing to implement them. This money will be paid back in 2063!!”
Ali Nassah championed for this investigation
Journalist and social ills commentator, Idriss Ali Nassah — who aggressively championed for the public release of the audit findings — said this is “sadly going to be the likely outcome”.
Lawyer Christopher Chiphwanya opined that there is “need to revive class actions and public interest litigation to force the culprits to pay back to which Nassah agreed, saying this was to avoid the audit report’s recommendations from dying a natural death — “to the delight of the culprits and their enablers”.
“I was amazed hearing the Secretary to the President and Cabinet telling Parliament yesterday (Wednesday) that he had not yet read a 48-page investigative report by the Ombudsman, four months after it was submitted to his office,” added Nassah.
Ombudsman Martha Chizuma already did her forensic audit on the CoVID-19 funds
To which Valencia Genevieve agrees, saying the government should not have even involved the National Audit Office as this was a waste of resources.
[The National Audit Office’s] auditors were paid, surely, unnecessarily, if you ask me, to do a job that was already done — twice — by the Ombudsman Martha Chizuma.
“We shall soon bring in gender [in some of these issues]. Madam Chizuma recommended [that the] misused funds should be repaid to the Covid fund. She recommended prosecutions in the two reports she provided twice.
“Her report was painfully detailed, following each and every tambala. Nothing was done to consider or indeed implement her recommendations,” she observed.
Co-chairperson of presidential taskforce, Health Minister Kandodo Chiponda
Kalimwai Jana suggested that the culprits just need to be prosecuted and also hinted that the co-chairpersons of the presidential taskforce,“must resign, if not be fired because this happened under their watch”.
“I know the other co-chair was already relieved of his duties thus leaving the Minister of Health [Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda]? She must resign or be fired.”
Another strong social ills critic, Onjezani Kenani brought in an interesting dimension to the National Audit Office’s report, saying he was reliably informed by his sources in the Malawi Police Service that they they were audited, “but mysteriously the results have not been included in this report. The question is: Why?”
Dziko Mndala was of the opinion that probably there is total mess in the Police and didn’t want to create more malfeasance while Carol Mkandawire suggested that maybe with pressure — just as was given for the release of this investigative audit — the authorities might include their findings on the the Police, “otherwise, we should forget”.
Key findings of the Report
* Expenditure on procurement flaws amounted to K493,907,232.42. Of of this, K321,578,996.42 related to use of RFQs instead of open tendering procurement methods; K105,995,500.00 related to irregular procurements; K48,482,220.00 related to use of single sourcing procurement method; K7,559,016.00 related to failure to produce original bid documents and K10,191,500.00 related to procurement at inflated prices
* Allowance related irregularities amounted to K80,277,500.00. Out of this K29,158,000.00 related to irregular payment of ‘risk allowance’; K17,742,000.00 related to over payment of subsistence and lunch allowance; K12,908,500.00 related to payment of allowances using incomplete documentation; K5,385,000.00 related to ineligible expenditure on ‘duty allowance’: K9,391,000.00 related to payment of allowance within duty station; K3,010,000.00 to payment of allowances to ghost officers while the rest related to some other irregularities
* There was a problems in accounting for cash with drawn amount to K83,056,539.00. Out of this amount K53,486,464.00 was not liquidated; K12,045,350.00 went missing without trace; K989,500.00 excess cash after an activity was shared among officers without justification; K16,149,225 was brought on charge after a very long time; K108,000 related to under-liquidation of expenditure and K278,000.00 could not be explained
* Expenditure of fuel-related accountability amounted to K39,786,585.80. Out of this K20,090,401.00 related to fuel which was not liquidated; K7,650,080.00 to missing fuel while the rest related to general fuel accountability flaws
* An amount of K23,649,094.00 was unbudgeted for, ineligible, wasteful and dubiously spent
* At the time of audit about K1 billion (K947,124,460.00) out of the allocated K6.2 billion had not been spent/used by the Clusters that received them
* Funding to the Local Authorities was made without a basis and budget
Conclusion on Audit
* Guidelines on CoVID-19 funds’ management and reporting were not provided to the clusters, as a result preparation and submission of expenditures returns was not prioritilised by both the clusters and the Presidential Taskforce
* Expenditure on allowances (subsistence, lunch, duty etc) were massively abused by almost all clusters
* The over-sight role of the Presidential Taskforce failed in its duties to act on the procurement of PPEs of K850,000,000.00 by the Ministry of Health and Central Medical Stores Trust (CMST)
* In some clusters, there was financial indiscipline in that money was spent on activities that were not budgeted for as well as activities that were not related to CoVID-19. Others did not even spend the funds that were budgeted for
Webinar alert? to do with Coronavirus
* Most clusters did not comply with the procurement regulations on the use of open tendering method of procurement, instead most clusters resorted to using Request for Quotation method which was a breach of a Circular letter dated 15th April, 2020 issued by the Director of Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets required all Ministries and Departments to follow the open tendering method when procuring items using ‘CoVID-19’ funds regardless of value. Additionally, the oversight role of IPDCs in the MDAs was very weak
* Quite a number of beneficiary institutions did not pay attention to economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the spending. Such kind of spending hardly provided real value for money and one would tend to wonder how the whole institution could decided to spend the funds on such unwarranted ‘needs’
* A majority of clusters especially DoDMA failed to fully liquidate the resources advanced to them
* Fuel was also grossly mismanaged. The mismanagement ranged from not liquidating the fuel Cheques collected to failure to account for the fuel received through accountability documents in form of fuel request registers and motor vehicle log books
* The lapses in financial management portrayed in this report is a reflection of lack of ardent control by Controlling Officers
Recommendations
Governance Arrangements:
* All the key stakeholders in a programme of this nature should have clear roles and responsibilities
* Structures within a programme should have competent and balanced representation of key professions
* Instructions should always be clear whenever new developments come into scene to avoid huge variations in the way such issues are handled,. Instructions should always come from relevant authorities depending on the issue under instructions
* There should be a clear way of allocating funds to the clusters and indeed the local authorities to avoid over and underfunding due to disparities between actual requirements and the level of funding
COVID-19 vaccine awareness
Control Arrangements
* Where controls are hardly followed, management teams of those institutions where this anomaly prevailed should lay down corrective measures to ensure that subsequent operations do not suffer in the same way
* The Presidential Taskforce and DoDMA should ensure proper scrutiny of the budgets from clusters to avoid misapplication of CoVID-19 funds
* The required reports on funding and expenditure should be submitted as required by the Presidential Taskforce and be subjected to review and audit
Other Collective Arrangements
* Those officers who took part in the malpractices which resulted in the loss of funds should be made to pay back the money
* The Government should ensure that all malpractices that are criminal in nature should be handed over to law enforcement agencies for further attention and action
* Administrative remedies should be applied in all applicable cases
Coronavirus alert
Challenges met in course of audit
* The arrest of almost all accounting officers and key officers at DoDMA for a week or so affected commencement of the audit at DoDMA which is the main stakeholder as far as investigation is concerned
* The interdiction of Controlling Officers affected the collection of audit evidence relating to issues which were directly related to them
* Getting to the root of the audit query took some time since this was an investigation and it required a lot of interviews and documents inspection within and without the spending entity
* At one points, all the Local Authorities were doing budget estimates and it was not possible to engage them effectively
* Financial logistics to support the assignment had a little impact as well to the extent that we started the audit without the resources
* Still, CoVID-19 measures had an impact on coordination in some cases
