RESPONSE TO THE MOF STATEMENT TO PARLIAMENT REGARDING THE ALLEGED MISSING K65 MILLION
By Sean Tembo – PeP President (MBA, BAcc, FCCA, FZICA, FCPA) Chartered Accountant & Registered Auditor
1. First of all l want to thank the Minister of Finance, through his Acting, for issuing a statement on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday, 13th June 2023 regarding the alleged missing K65 million. This statement to Parliament is a follow up to a media statement issued by MoF on 5th June 2023 on the same matter. Therefore it was my expectation, and l believe the expectation of many other Zambians, that the Ministerial Statement to Parliament would provide more information and better clarity than the previously issued media statement by MoF. However, instead of answering the many questions that exist on this K65 million debacle and hopefully putting the matter to rest once and for all, the Ministerial Statement to Parliament has raised more questions than existed before.
2. For starters, it is worth noting that the Ministerial Statement to Parliament was not issued out of the Minister’s own volition, but rather as a response to a raging scandal that was first broken by News Diggers Newspaper who published contents of a Draft Management Letter issued by the Office of Auditor General (OAG) to the Anti Corruption Commission in which the OAG said the K65 million did not reflect in the Consolidated Fund Account (Control 99) held at BOZ. Therefore, in his Ministerial Statement to Parliament, the Minister should have addressed the specific query raised by OAG.
3. Kindly note that the OAG did not say the K65 million was not transfered to Control 99, but that the K65 million did not reflect in Control 99. These two issues might appear synonymous to an untrained eye, but they are not. They are actually very different. A payment might be transferred from one bank account to another and yet not arrive where it is supposed to reach. The only evidence that a payment sent to Control 99 actually reached Control 99 is if it reflects on the account statement of Control 99. According to the Office of Auditor General, they looked at the account statement of Control 99 and the K65 million was not reflecting. The OAG in their query did not say the K65 million was not transfered to Control 99, but merely that it did not reflect in Control 99.
4. Therefore if the Government in general, and the Minister of Finance in particular want to put this matter of the alleged missing K65 million to rest once and for all, they need to produce proof, not that the K65 million was transfered by ACC to Control 99, but that the K65 million actually reflected in Control 99. That means the Ministerial Statement should have simply said “the K65 million reflected in Control 99 on 5th March 2022 at 13:56 hours and here is an exerpt of the bank statement from Control 99 showing the credit of the K65 million”. And then he should have shared with Members of Parliament a copy of the Control 99 bank statement which shows the date and time when the K65 million reflected. Then the matter would have been put to rest once and for all.
5. But instead, the Minister decided to dwell on irrelevant issues such as what the K65 million was used for. The OAG did not raise an audit query that the K65 million was not properly used, so the Minister telling us what the K65 million was used for is irrelevant and possibly designed to crowd up the matter. The OAG query was very specific; that the K65 million did not reflect in Control 99. Therefore, the Minister was being evasive by addressing a query about usage of the K65 million which the OAG did not raise, while ignoring the query about the K65 million not reflecting in Control 99 which the OAG raised.
6. If you pay particular attention to the Minister’s statement to Parliament yesterday, you will notice that he was also very selective in the provision of details. For instance, he gave us the account number for the Kwacha and Dollar Consolidated Fund Accounts (Control 99) as 0011000370317 and 0011000371614 respectively which we all know and is therefore irrelevant, but he failed to give us the account number for the ACC Asset Forfeiture Kwacha and Dollar Holding Accounts maintained at the same Bank of Zambia and where the K65 million is alleged to have been deposited and subsequently transfered out of.
7. If the Government in general and the Minister of Finance in particular are sincere and honest, we challenge them to publish the ACC bank account number at BOZ where the K65 million was initially allegedly deposited and subsequently transfered to Control 99. But your guess is as good as mine. They can never publish that account number because the K65 million was never deposited there in the first place, and neither was it ever transfered from there.
8. Just like they can never give you a date and time when the K65 million reflected in Control 99, or a printout of the bank statement for Control 99 showing a credit of the K65 million because it never reached Control 99, just like the OAG determined. The only way the Minister can share a bank statement for Control 99 showing the K65 million is if he creates a forgery, but even then we shall be able to tell that it’s a forgery. The Minister and his Government will however continue to provide us with all the other irrelevant details except for the actual details that we need to prove that the K65 million was deposited by ACC in their bank account at BOZ and subsequently transfered to Control 99. They are simply bullshitting us.
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SET 14.06,2023
