PAC says Cashgate ministers hiding under suppliers

Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has said it will not focus on military and police procurements under scrutiny in the K236 billion Cashgate as government is using national security to shield Cabinet ministers alleged to have been implicated by the forensic investigations.

PAC further says the oversight committee is impressed that most of the suppliers under question in the report were cleared previously after investigations for overpricing allegations and says Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale will be allowed to conduct an internal investigation on the matter if necessary.

In an interview on Thursday, outspoken PAC vice-chairperson Kamlepo Kalua said he and his chairperson resolved that the committee’s line of inquiries should focus on the involvement of ministers after fears that there was a cover-up being planned on the role of the ministers.

“We cannot compromise on the issue of Cabinet ministers. These files have to be disclosed, but the issue of security is stale. It dates back to the 2013 forensic audit by Baker Tilly but they want to hide behind this issue,” said Kalua.

He said the files on the ministers were already with the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and the committee will exert every pressure to ensure that Malawians are given the names of Cabinet ministers involved.

“Some of the security issues are already in court and we would not prejudice those cases, so we will wait for the names of ministers because nobody should be shielded,” said Kalua.

On the issue of overpricing, Kalua said the committee would recommend new stringent measures to internal procurement committees of the security organs.

In an interview, also on Thursday, Kaphale said he was yet to review individual files of the forensic audit. He said in the absence of the information, he retains his view that most of the overpricing at the security organs was not actually part of Cashgate.

“In the absence of individual files, which could give me contradictory view, I would say I still maintain the same position that most of the transactions which involved overpricing were not Cashgate-related,” said Kaphale.

In 2014, Kaphale cleared payments to some security suppliers that were feared to have been involved in suspected transactions pertaining to security organs.

“My reading of the report, which I have done several times, shows that the main issue in the transactions involving [some of these companies] was pricing. Prices are agreed by two parties,” Kaphale was quoted by the local media as saying.

He added: “Documents I have show that the payments were Okayed by this office. Government normally does not buy from a source. It buys from middlemen who usually quote their prices higher.”

Following a probe, the ACB last year also cleared two companies from involvement in Cashgate, but indicated it would still investigate whether any crime was committed through overpricing.

The forensic audit of the financial years 2009-2014 was carried out in two phases. In the first phase PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), on behalf of the National Audit Office (NAO)checked whether the statements from government bank accounts matched with entries in the Integrated Financial Management Information Systems (Ifmis).

The analysis showed that 43 percent of payments reflected in the government bank statements were not accounted for in Ifmis. The Auditor General’s report on the cashbook reconstruction was presented to Parliament in June 2015.

The shooting of former Ministry of Finance budget director Paul Mphwiyo outside the gate of his Area 43 residence in Lilongwe on September 13 2013 is widely believed to have led to revelations of Cashgate.