No traces of cheques paid under DSIP, says AG report

 By FRANK SENGE KOLMA

ABOUT 85% of cheques paid under the district services improvement programme (DSIP) in 2010 could not be traced by the Auditor-General because most of them were made at Parliament without any proper cheque signing register.

And the AG reports that officers were under pressure and the office had no control over the funds.

The AG could not trace how the payments were spent because documentation and other records were not kept at district treasuries.

The audit observation was agreed to by the management of the Office of Rural Development, which is charged with implementing the Government’s rural development programmes.

Responding to the AG, the ORD agreed that the cheque payment register was not kept but the office planned to rectify the fault. The ORD further agreed that some “political pressure” might have been involved in the making of certain payments.

The ORD response reads in part: “Agree that strict compliance guidelines exist. However nine payments may have been due to political pressure or merely an oversight. All the funds are in two components, non discretionary and discretionary, the latter managed by departments of Finance and Treasury thus the occurrence of detected irregularities.

“(ORD) agree that reconciling of records of districts/provincial treasuries remains major concern which could only be resolved through collaboration efforts of relevant government agencies.”

Noted too was clear lack of proper communication between the Department of Finance and ORD as to how best the DSIP funds were to be disbursed.

In 2010, K89 million or K1 million each meant for feeder road construction in each of the 89 open electorates, was transferred from ORD to Finance on a telephone direction from the Finance secretary. No documentary evidence seems to exit from Finance giving the reasons for the transfer of this large sum of money.

In addition to the lack of documentation, names and signatures of cheque issuing officers have not been entered making it impossible to identify persons responsible for signing and delivering the cheques.