Chinamasa under fire

4.1.8       Variance observed between the 2013 returns submitted by line Ministries and those by Treasury as well as balances in the SAP System

The 2013 returns submitted by some line Ministries had different figures from those submitted by the Treasury and balances in the SAP system. Registers for Public Financial Assets were not being maintained in the system. Expenditures for Lending and Equity only appeared in the year the payments were made by Ministries. However, repayments were not deducted from the original payments made through the system as only manual records were being maintained. In addition, the Ministry of Finance made direct payments to service providers such as CMED (Pvt) Ltd, NetOne and TelOne. In some instances documents pertaining to such transactions were not availed to line Ministries, thereby resulting in differences between Treasury records and those of line Ministries. If up to date records are not maintained in the system, the completeness and reliability of Public Financial Assets may be compromised.

 The Accountant General concurred that Public Financial Assets were not properly recorded by line Ministries. As a corrective measure, the Ministry had created a manual Public Financial Asset Register which was availed to the Committee as evidence. The Accountant General pointed out that a Comprehensive Loans Management Module was not yet available on the PFM system, but they intend to investigate the possibility of using the newly established Debt Management System for managing all public financial assets. The Ministry is using the normal payments system which they are familiar with since they are not trained. He advised the Committee that training would be provided during 2016 on the standard way of recording loans in the Public Financial Assets Register with a view to migrating to the new system.

 4.1.8.1    The Committee took note of the undertakings made by the Accountant General and recommends that training should be undertaken by the first half of 2016 to avoid recurrences in the next round of audits.

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