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{
    "id": 742857,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/742857/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 247,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Bunyasi",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2511,
        "legal_name": "John Sakwa Bunyasi",
        "slug": "john-sakwa-bunyasi"
    },
    "content": "One of the most stringent laws we have in this country is the Public Finance Management (PFM) Act. That law says that if you take imprest you should surrender it within 48 hours. It is amazing that there are senior persons who can tolerate the issue of imprest not being surrendered. We know that there are people who use imprest as a form of a loan advanced to them. They are aware that once they retire or leave the institution, nobody would follow them up. Sometimes people die and the institutions say that they cannot recover the money. Nobody talks about the estate of the person who failed to surrender imprest. The issue of imprest is not a small one. In fact, it shows a fundamental weakness on the part of users of imprest and the managers above them. They skew the law by not enforcing what is a fairly straightforward matter. I think some punishments need to include not just the imprest holders, but also the managers who do not manage it well. In many cases, there is weakness in making a follow-up because the bosses themselves are culprits. As a way of ensuring discipline in public finance management in the parastatal sector, part of it need to be tightened so that CEOs know that in the end, their only valuations will be determined by how well they have managed the resources under them. So far, that has not worked very well. Parastatals or the EACC should not be waiting until Parliament makes a report of this nature to begin, perhaps, to make a move. We have annual reports on parastatals by the Auditor- General. These parastatals submit them. I hope they can go right ahead and begin to put pressure on parastatals. The reason is that Parliament, even with the best efforts, is still looking, in some cases, into accounts dating back to 2009. We have gone up to 2015 in many cases, which is commendable. I hope that in future, by the time parliamentary committees get to look at such reports, the issues will be resolved. If they have not and are waiting for the issues to get to Parliament, we will be creating a loophole and people will steal and loot public resources with great impunity, without anybody worrying about any measures taken against the culprits. In the report, I do not notice the complaints of the Auditor-General that sometimes getting documents from Government departments is a tall order. You have to make requests over and over. It is the same problem with parastatals. This must be punished. I do not know if there is a law to cure this, but under the PFM Act, one is compelled to provide information that is required. It would look like they do so reluctantly. We have seen cases where parastatals appearing before a certain Committee say that they have given their annual accounts to the Auditor-General. When asked when they did that, they say only last week. That is probably two weeks to the end of a financial year. There is a general sense of laziness. They are shrewd. They do not provide information on time and so, it cannot be analysed critically by the Auditor- General. It will go beyond Parliament with nothing, but a slap on the wrist. In many cases, the misappropriation of funds cannot be discovered in time because of that. If we have to tolerate the parastatal sector - I say tolerate because there are many cases where some of them have to be liberalised especially if their mandate is no longer relevant – we need to rationalise that more, so that resources can go into the productive sectors of the economy without being whittled away through bad governance. I know of a major parastatal that operated without a board for years. The Central Bank did not have a board for more than a year. They only had a chair. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}