Govt staff steal billions in ghost companies

Auditor general anna chifungula says accounting staff at the Copperbelt provincial administration office now in court on various charges allegedly ran ‘ghost’ companies that provided goods and services to the Government resulting in billions of Kwacha being lost.

Chifungula said this in Lusaka May 11 when Copperbelt Permanent Secretary Villie Lombanya appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament chaired by Luena MP Charles Milupi. Lombanya appeared before the committee to explain financial irregularities as highlighted in the auditor-general’s report for the financial year ending December 31, 2007.

Chifungula said that given the manner in which the funds were abused, it was clear that most of the accounting staff or others connected to them were running companies that never had difficulties in accessing their payments.

“There was a cartel to make easy payments and there is a likelihood that these companies were owned by people who were working in the accounting unit,” she said.

Narrating the abuse of funds, Lombanya said that during 2007, a provision of
ZMK1,559,226,616 (US$311,845.32) was made for the construction of staff houses at provincial level and the Ministry of Finance and National Planning released
ZMK1,259,742,234 (US$251,948.45). He said it was regrettable that the money was not used for the intended purpose and there was overexpenditure of K58,000,517 (US$11,600.10). He said that the accounting staff involved in the scam had been dismissed and 17 of them were facing charges in the courts of law. Lombanya said that apart from facing the charges in courts, the Government was recovering the funds from the terminal benefits of the affected.

But Milupi said that the money from the terminal benefits would not be enough.
He said the Government should instead institute civil litigations against the culprits as they had numerous properties which could be seized.