THE Ombudsman Commission is apprehensive about the National Government’s announcement to allocate a K10 million to each district in the 2008 Budget.
Ombudsman John Nero said the commission only learnt about the Government’s decision in the media and was concerned at the way that the Government was conducting business in ignorance of the capacity in the majority of the districts.
Mr Nero said in a statement that most of the 89 districts lacked appropriate administrative and operational infrastructure to manage the K10 million.
He said the National Government last month, through the Supplementary Budget, allocated K4 million to the 89 districts.
“I take it that these funds inevitably will be parked in a trust account somewhere seeing that the financial year is about to end and nothing much would be done without keeping the rules,” Mr Nero said.
He said that while the Ombudsman Commission did not want to be seen to impede Government initiatives, it was equally wary of the consequences and impact such a decision would have on the districts in terms of delivery of tangible outcomes in the absence of suitable and appropriate capacity for the districts to administer such large grants.
“The current trend was that many of the districts had had great difficulty in the disbursement of the K1.5 million under the rural action programme and constitutional grants.”
He said to date some of these funds remain unacquitted.
“This allocation is six and a half times more and would require a lot of work in terms of accountability.
“We all have a part to play in accountability and good governance and the Ombudsman Commission must take a proactive role to ensure that the Government and its respective officials are compliant and accountable in disbursement and accounting of these funds.”