Minister of Finance and National Planning, Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane, addressed the issue surrounding the forfeited K65 million by corruption suspect Faith Musonda during a parliamentary session. The matter gained significant attention after News Diggers Newspaper published a story claiming that the forfeited funds had gone missing.
In his ministerial statement, Dr. Musokotwane clarified that on February 25th, 2022, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) was instructed to transfer the forfeited funds into the consolidated accounts (Control 99) at the Bank of Zambia. The disbursement of the funds was carried out as follows: K73,172,516.00 was allocated to the Ministry of Education under a budget line called University Education.
Dr. Musokotwane emphasized that the transfer of the forfeited funds followed the mandate given to the Minister of Finance by the Public Financial Management Act Number 1 of 2018 and the Forfeiture of Proceeds Act Number 19 of 2010. He highlighted that the ACC complied with the Ministry’s request and transferred the funds on March 3rd, 2022, into the Consolidated Fund (Control 99). The transferred amount was K65,332,446.00 in Zambian Kwacha, which included an additional K1,036,366.21 equivalent to USD57,950.00 at the exchange rate of ZMW17.8883/USD.
The Minister of Finance further provided hardcopy documents of the transmission transcript for both the Kwacha and Dollar funds transferred on March 3rd, 2022. He confirmed that the funds were transferred from the ACC Asset Forfeiture Accounts at the Bank of Zambia to the Ministry of Finance and National Planning Consolidated Fund Accounts.
Regarding the utilization of the funds, Dr. Musokotwane explained that the Ministry of Education had applied for a supplementary provision of K73,172,516.00 under the budget line “University Education Provision.” This supplementary provision included the total forfeited funds of K66,368,812.21, along with an additional K6,803,703.79 provided from the general revenues to meet the Ministry of Education’s supplementary requirement.
The supplementary provision was presented to the National Assembly and received approval. The Supplementary Appropriation Bill, reflecting the approved supplementary estimate of expenditure, was subsequently assented to by the President of Zambia on August 3rd, 2022. To support his statements, Dr. Musokotwane provided hardcopy documents of the transmission transcript for the transferred funds, as well as a copy of the approved supplementary provision for the Ministry of Education.
