PAC grills Youth PS
.Over failure to manage Higer bus empowerment
THE Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday lambasted Ministry of Youth and Sport, Permanent Secretary John Phiri over gross negligence in the management of empowerment programmes owing to the failure to collect remittances and failure to take action against defaulting beneficiaries.
Dr Phiri and his team from the ministry also felt the heat of the committee when they failed to explain the whereabouts of two buses out of the 25 which were given out under the Higer Bus Empowerment programme.
The ministry was appearing before the committee to answer to discrepancies in the management of public resources which were captured by the Auditor General’s office for the year ended December 2020.
The committee, chaired by Independent Member of Parliament for Bwana Mkubwa Constituency Warren Mwambazi, was angered by the inconsistent responses from the team which appeared to be disorganised and their failure to provide some relevant supporting documents.
On the Youth Development Fund, Dr Phiri had a hard time explaining why the ministry had only recovered about K2.5 million out of the over K52 million loans to 2, 750 youth groups which was disbursed since 2012.
Mr Mwambazi warned the team not to take the PAC hearing as a ‘circus’ as the law could be invoked against the ‘ unserious’ team.
He told Dr Phiri to take the session seriously by providing responses which were coherent.
But Dr Phiri, who periodically called directors at the ministry to help him with responses assured the committee that legal action would be taken against the defaulting beneficiaries who had already been reported to law enforcement officers.
Kantanshi MP, Anthony Mumba made matters worse with his insistence for the ministry to explain why there was such a high default rate.
And Dr Phiri and his team equally had a hard time to explain why the ministry went ahead with phase two of the bus empowerment programme when about US$2 million still remained uncollected from phase one.
PAC member and Nalolo MP, Imanga Wamunyima questioned whether there was political interference in selection of the 13 beneficiaries for the bus empowerment programme in phase two.
Dr Phiri could not clearly
explain the motive for commencing phase two of the programme as he repeatedly assured legal action would be taken against defaulters.
He also indicated that the ministry did not have a clear plan on how to recover the loans from the empowerment programmes.