Legislators want the Audit Office Act amended to compel ministers to table all public sector audit reports in Parliament within a week of their completion and want the Standing Orders to state, in clear terms, that no one has a privilege to disobey summons by parliamentary committees.
The Public Accounts Committee said ministers were dragging
feet in tabling special reports, forensic audit reports and others, raising
technicalities. This, according to the
parliamentarians, was militating against the anti-graft fight.
Current laws give the minister discretionary power on
whether or not to table a report in Parliament. There is no specific time-frame
in which a minister is expected to take forensic and special audit reports to
Parliament.
Some minsters have thus been sitting on forensic audit
reports and other special investigation reports for months while they study
them.
Following a recent delay by the Ministry of Transport and
Infrastructural Development in tabling Zinara’s forensic audit compiled by
Grant Thornton, the committee recommended changes to the laws.
The committee also had challenges with Zinara officials and
some contractors who refused to appear for interviews during an inquiry into
alleged malpractice and corruption at the parastatal.
“The Committee makes a finding that the current legal
provisions pertaining to the tabling of reports needs to be harmonized with the
Constitution to remove obstacles presented by Members of the Executive
unwilling to have reports tabled.
“The provisions of Section 10, 11, 12 and 13 of the Audit
Office Act are unclear and leave Parliament in general and the Public Accounts
Committee in particular, hanging at the discretion of the relevant Minister
whose state enterprise or local authority has been subjected to an inquiry.
“The current law
rests the responsibility and obligations on the responsible minister without
any timelines and clearly defined procedures. In the present subject matter,
there was a clear refusal by the responsible minister of tabling the Forensic
Audit Report.
“The Committee and Parliament have experienced similar
challenges with other ministers and other forensic audit reports,” said the
committee. Civil and criminal penalties must visit any officer who fails to
submit or lay any report as described in the Act,” reads the recommendations by
the special committee.
The committee added: “The Standing Orders need amendment so
that they make it clear that there is no privilege for those that are appearing
before a Parliamentary Committee to give evidence. The Committee makes the
strong finding that there is no legal privilege or protection that is available
to a private actor that would have received state resources either by way of
contract, donation or grant.”
The committee also proposes that All public sector audits,
including special audits for central Government, state owned enterprises and
local authorities, plus all reports of special investigations conducted in
terms of Section 40 of the Public Entities Corporate Governance Act must be
forwarded to the Auditor General within 14 days of their completion. The
Auditor-General, according to the Public Accounts Committee, must in turn
automatically submit to Parliament the concerned special report within 14 days
of getting it.
According to the committee, the responsible minister must
table the concerned report before the National Assembly within the next 7
sitting days after the completion of the audit.
“Where the minister fails to table the report as defined above,
the Speaker of the National Assembly shall lay before the House the report on
the first sitting of Parliament after the lapsing of the 7 sitting days above.
“Therein after, the relevant Committee must examine the
report or the National Assembly itself must debate the report within 21 sitting
days of its tabling,” the committee recommended. Herald
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