WHY IS UPND OBSESSED WITH ILLEGALITY
…asks Hon Kafwaya as he castigates New Dawn over the transfers in the MoF
Lusaka… Saturday, February 18, 2023 (Smart Eagles)
Patriotic Mutote Kafwaya has slammed the UPND Administration over the investigations emanating from what he has termed as illegal audit that some employees in the Ministry of Finance have been subjected to.
Hon Kafwaya has also castigated the President Hakainde Hichilema led Administration over the transfer of the affected persons regarding the matter in question.
The lawmaker has wondered why the UPND is obsessed with illegality.
He said when he and other PF lawmaker addressed the press in Lusaka today that a significant portion of government undertaking is being undertaken on an illegal basis.
“We now live in a time when there is so much corruption and there’s so much looting where people are giving themselves contracts, illegal contracts…Just about, a very significant portion of government undertaking is being undertaken on an illegal basis. Now you have even gone to accountability institutions such as the Auditor General where the Auditor General by an illegal audit report,” he said.
“That is very unfortunate. You see, a person in the ministry of finance is aggrieved that they have not been appointed as Auditor General and they undertake an audit exercise targeting the friends. They release allowances of the friends, they do not release their own allowances… it is at this point where I challenge the ministry of finance to go back to the period and audit the allowances of the person who actually produced that report. You’ll find that she also got the same amount but because she’s doing the audit out of hate, she’s doing the audit out of malice, she eliminates her allowances and releases allowances of her friends so that they can be punished.”
He disclosed that the same audit which the current administration has based the transfers on was disregarded by the PF regime because it was illegal.
The Lawmaker further argued that there is no provision under the law that provides for a person under investigations to be transferred.
“But this audit report was disregarded when PF was in power. It was thrown away because this report is actually illegal. It was not sanctions by the Secretary to the Treasury. This is the audit the current administrations come and gets and starts transferring people on a basis of an illegal audit,” he said.
“So my question is why is the UPND government so comfortable with illegal things. Other than this illegal audit, I am sure not too long ago we were talking of illegal contraction of private audit firms… I want I want to challenge the government and in particular, the ministry of finance that their actions are illegal because they are based on an illegal audit report.”
The said transfers were confirmed by the Minister of Finance and National Planning Hon Situmbeko Msokotwane and the Secretary to the Treasury and they both cited the said investigations as the grounds on which people in the ministries were being transferred.