Officer dismisses fraud fears at Karonga Council

Karonga District Council director of finance Ahmed Sadi, who has received a transfer notice amid calls for financial reports and audit into alleged mismanagement, has dismissed fraud fears at the council.

In recent months, there have been accusations of financial mismanagement at the council and councillors have been calling on the district secretariat to provide them with financial reports on Local Development Fund (LDF), Constituency Development Fund (CDF) and funds for other projects.

The tension was aggravated by alleged revelation of unaccounted K5 million for CDF.

The secretariat is alleged to be unwilling to give such reports and recently a central processing unit (CPU) where information on financial transactions was being stored went missing.

Speaking in an interview on Monday, Sadi said people are being misled to believe that there was abuse of funds when money for some projects was only diverted to other activities within the council.

He said it is common practice among councils that some projects do not get 100 percent funding due to the fact that part of the money was used for other activities.

Sadi said it will be a waste of time and resources to carry out investigations on alleged mismanagement arguing there are no cases of fraud.

Karonga District Council chairperson Patrick Kishombe said councillors are eager to check the financial reports to clear out fears of financial mismanagement.