We applaud AG | Business Times

We applaud Acting Auditor-General (AG) Rheah Kujinga for uncovering gross financial malfeasance and mismanagement in State-owned firms as part of her courageous efforts to combat corruption.

The Permanent Secretary of the Finance Ministry, George Guvamatanga, has made an effort to silence the AG’s offices by saying that they shouldn’t be excited.

Guvamatanga is behaving inappropriately.

He should leave  the AG’s office to audit  and report fairly  and freely  on State entities.

By exposing the corruption and mismanagement  inside the government entities, the SAG performed  an excellent job.

However, Guvamatanga intended to scare the AG and her staff. He expressed concern over the AG findings that were presented to Parliament, exposing  how the government  paid  for vehicles that were never delivered.

The latest AG report unveiled how the government paid huge sums of money for goods and services that included 97 vehicles and medical and ICT equipment respectively but suppliers failed to deliver the said goods to various line ministries and departments.

During a familiarisation tour of the Treasury by the Budget and Finance Parly Committee on Monday, Guvamatanga  confirmed  that out of the 97 vehicles reportedly undelivered to various ministries and departments, about 20 vehicles were still to be delivered.

Guvamatanga said the Treasury was tracking all the vehicles, ICT and medical equipment and other services that were undelivered by suppliers given tenders by the government after it had been flagged by the internal audit unit.

“l can safely say that the auditor general misdirected themselves because, within the three pillars of control, those are regarded as issues known to management so l am not saying they should not have highlighted them but they should have mentioned them and say, the government has discovered that there were undelivered vehicles.“I have got the numbers here. There were 167 as of June 9, 2023, so we procured 167 vehicles and we had 97 of these vehicles that were undelivered but we knew them ministry by ministry and we had already written to those ministries to say, can you make sure that these vehicles are delivered.“As we speak, this number of 97 is now down to about just twenty-something,” Guvamatanga said.

He added that the ministry was aware of the “missing cars” and following up hence there was “no need for this excitement” on social media over the issue.

“I am sorry to say that the AG is still operating as if we do not have a centralised internal audit unit but we will align them to make sure reports are delivered speedily and to make sure known issues are not reported as new issues.“There is no need for this excitement about motor vehicles, about people not knowing what is happening. We have all the information and we will continue to track and support the work of both the Auditor General and that of the centralised internal audit unit,” Guvamatanga added.

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