TIME TO SHOW COURAGE, HEADS MUST ROLL - PAC

MBABANE – “We will not be accomplices to corruption”

This bold stance has been taken by the new Public Accounts Committee (PAC) as they prepare to usher in a new era and join hands with all relevant stakeholders in the fight against corruption. Following His Majesty King Mswati III and Prime Minister Russell Dlamini’s directive to double down in the fight against corruption, the new PAC Chairperson Madala Mhlanga, who is also the Deputy Speaker in the House of Assembly, said  now is the time to be brave in the fight against corruption as a united front. Mhlanga was responding to questions on what the new PAC intended to do to combat corruption in the country as well as mismanagement of public funds by government ministries and departments. Mhlanga said Eswatini was not in a leadership quagmire but in a courage crisis. “The country is in a courage crisis in fighting mismanagement of finances. We are in denial and we are afraid to confront corruption in the country because we are so interrelated,” he said.

He said government officials were using public funds to achieve personal interests and enrich themselves which led to the nation losing the bigger picture of sharing the available resources equitably to prosper Eswatini. He noted that government’s main mandate was advancing public interest. He said currently, statistics show that there was 42 per cent unemployment in the country while 58 per cent of emaSwati live below the poverty line and of that, 20 per cent live in extreme poverty. “We need concerted effort to eliminate these threats and we jointly uplift our fellow emaSwati from poverty,” he said. The chairperson said the time had come for organs such as the PAC to fear not and said in their courage; lay the prosperity of the nation. He said in order to have the courage, to fight back against corruption, one needed to have integrity which was doing something right when no one was looking.
He said there was a need for all citizens to rebuke their blood brothers and sisters while insisting that the fight against corruption needed true brothers keepers and noble stewardship.
Mhlanga elaborated that the figures that were discovered during audits related to flouting of government procurement procedures were damning and it was upon all emaSwati to put an end to it.

He recalled that during the 11th Parliament, the PAC recovered over E200 million of mismanaged public funds over a period of five years and these equated to funds recovered from 20 audited schools, where hundreds of millions of Emalangeni were unaccounted for by the school principals, misstated government assets among the various government ministries and departments, unaccounted for tour advances as well as scholarships to Eswatini students that were not repaid. He said through the mismanagement of the public funds, service delivery was delayed to the ordinary man in the streets. Mhlanga said as much as the PAC recommendations reports had all the names, positions and employment numbers of all the officials who were found to be using public resources illegally, but there was no legislation in place that brought the culprits to book.

toothless

“As long as Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is toothless, we are as good as there is no law to combat corruption and we will continue to bootlick criminals,” he said. He said as Parliament and the PAC, they refused to be accomplices to public funds looting and they were determined to fight to bring back confidence in the country’s governance. The chairperson said as legislators, they were aware that corruption fights back and it fights dirty, however, they were prepared to bear the blunt. “Corruption first compromises you, then owns your soul and then it destroys your life. Our hope for our citizen’s lies with my team of honourables to fight back too,” vowed Mhlanga. He said in order to fight the scourge, there was a need for an independent Auditor General Office to adequately execute their duties as the public purse protector, an independent Central Bank, to monitor financial flows and red flag especially illicit financial outflows.

Mhlanga also said there was a need for an independent media to be the whistle-blowers and be blunt. Adding, he said there was also a need for an independent and professional ACC to  deter and vigilantly fight corruption, an independent and vibrant Parliament to ensure they held the  executive accountable as well as a responsive Executive that would ensure effective service delivery. He said to achieve the intended goal; there was a need for legislators, executive and judiciary to ensure these were in place to create a conducive environment and structures to fight corruption from all angles as government. He said this, however, boiled down to political will from all stakeholders as corruption was the greatest threat to the economy and society.

During the last session of the 11th Parliament, PAC reported that they had recovered a total of E234 million unaccounted for funds. The committee accomplished this milestone through recommendations made from the Auditor General’s Office reports including the government financial report as well as the compliance report tabled annually. Part of the recovered funds was from the Poverty Reduction Fund defaulters, schools principals as well as other government ministries and departments.

reasons

The PAC together with the AGs office noted that the recovered funds were only a tip of the iceberg as more public funds slipped through the cracks due to various reasons. In 2022, PAC reported that about E90 million public funds were lost monthly through corruption which was a significant increase from the E40 million estimated by the former Minister of Finance Majozi Sithole several years ago. Poor and outdated accounting systems and policies have been attributed to the loss of public funds by the various controlling officers. The PAC, Auditor General Timothy Matsebula and the then Accounted General Samuel Mbingo observed that there was a slight improvement with regards to compliance with government procurement procedures over the past few years. This was revealed during one of the PAC public hearings where all controlling officers from their respective ministries, departments, parastatals as well as security forces were present.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: