The Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) is calling for an independent forensic audit at the office of the accountant General following a series of arrests involving 19 employees suspected to have committed fraudulent and irregular transactions at the office.
According to a statement signed by the organization’s National Chairperson Gift Trapence, it is shocking and truly scandalous, it is not entirely surprising because of the lackluster attitude in which government has been dealing with problems associated with their finance system since the Cashgate scandal broke.
“For a start, the Malawi government has a history of being reactive and not proactive when dealing with problems. When Cashgate happened, government engaged a piecemeal approach to dealing with the financial scandal, sealing particular loopholes in the government accounting system instead of employing a holistic approach,” reads part of the statement.
The statement further questions the manner in which the government handling such cases nine years after the country’s biggest financial scam was reported and how the authorities, continues to leak finances through internal fraud and scams.
This recent scandal at the Accountant Generals Office is both shameful and embarrassing because it comes from the very office that is trusted with guarding public purse.
While the Accountant General’s Office is the gatekeeper of public funds and it ought to have been the last office to be involved in such financial scams and the
Scandal should serve as a wake-up call and jolt government to thoroughly review all systems to ensure that public resources are not wasted.
Meanwhile, the organisation is expressing confidence that the government will do the needful by conducting the audit to determine the scope of the fraud and to put in place measures to safeguard public finances.
Additionally, HRDC has reiterated its previous calls for government to set up a special Financial Crimes Court to expedite trials that ordinarily delay due to an overwhelmed judiciary system and for President Lazarus Chakwera to implement the Public Sector Reforms that he initiated to instill a sense of fiscal discipline and cut wastage of public funds though fraud.
