PAC for fresh probe into cashgate

The new Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament plans to summon several stakeholders in the ongoing probe into how government lost billions of taxpayers’ money in what has come to be called Cashgate.

Speaking after a three-week review of audit reports which ended on Friday, committee chairperson Alekeni Menyani said much as they agreed and commended the work of the previous committee, some of the stakeholders who appeared did not give convincing answers.

“We are still in the process of identifying which of these stakeholders should reappear before the committee for giving unconvincing answers or making contradictory statements,” Menyani said.

He said it would only be after adding input from these stakeholders that the reports would be submitted to Parliament.

But Menyani would not disclose the stakeholders.

However, some of the officials and institutions who testified to the porosity of the public finance management system and how funds could have been siphoned included the minister of Finance at the time, Ken Lipenga, banks, Reserve Bank of Malawi and former budget director Paul Mphwiyo.

With regard to the forensic audit the British firm Baker Tilly conducted on behalf of the National Audit Office which found that K13 billion was lost from government coffers, Menyani said the committee maintained the stand that there was a need for the report to include names of individuals and companies.

This report is yet to be finalised by the Auditor General and the August deadline will not be met.

Another contentious report the committee reviewed was the K92 billion audit findings into the Central Payment System covering the period 2009 and part of 2012.

The report has become controversial as it implied that Cashgate started in the previous Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) regime.

Menyani said the committee was convinced that the report contained audit queries which needed further investigations.

“It is very scanty. We will rework on the report, but the observation is that most of them are audit queries and a number of ministries have not been audited. This leaves a lot of room for speculation,” Menyani said.

He promised that the committee would work with the Auditor General to complete all outstanding audits.