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{
    "id": 599766,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/599766/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 166,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Eng.) Gumbo",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 24,
        "legal_name": "Nicholas Gumbo",
        "slug": "nicholas-gumbo"
    },
    "content": "simply give the last minute request for postponement of their appearance. I will give you an example. Yesterday, we came to you and requested you that we needed to hold a sitting today as Parliament was having a session, so that we are able to meet the deadlines. We were to look at the annual accounts of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries. Unknown to us, yesterday, the Accounting Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries had already written requesting for the postponement of the sitting. You had granted us the opportunity to sit and the Members were sitting and this letter comes at the last minute. Even before then, we had scheduled to look at the accounts of the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources. This was to be done on 9th November, 2015. The same day, on 9th November, as the Committee was sitting, we got a letter from the Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources saying that they are not able to appear and are requesting for the appearance to be rescheduled. You have even seen the cases that we have had with the Ministry of Devolution and Planning, where an accounting officer brings documents and then later on goes to say that they are erroneous documents. The point I want to bring here is that if these constitutional deadlines as provided for under Article 229 are to be met, then it means that this information that these accounting officers purport to be wanting to bring now, ought to have been brought by the end of September last year. So, those accounting officers who are purporting to want to bring the information now are 13 months late. We are the representatives of the people and what the people will see is that Parliament is delaying in its work and yet, the work of Parliament cannot progress. Hon. Speaker, as I seek your intervention and advice on how to proceed, there are only two issues here, namely for the accounting officers to respect their constitutional mandate and in their failure, we have to use the Auditor-General’s observations without giving them an opportunity to appear for us to comply with the constitutional deadlines. It is becoming extremely frustrating for us to be working the way we are doing. We are not going to complete the work. Some of the accounting officers who had requested to be given a week have called me saying that they need more time to look at this and that."
}