UNENDING PURGE

WE seem to have seen it before and history appears to be repeating itself.

And the more reason the nation ought to be worried at the goings on regarding the office of the Auditor General, and the occupant of the office, Dr Dick Sichembe.

That worry should not be farfetched by based on history since the new dawn administration came into office.

Zambians should remember that history has shown that the new dawn administration will ride roughshod over legal barriers to achieve what it wants.

It is prepared to arm-twist the establishment as long as that would protect its interests – oblivious of the negative views.

Remember how former Director of Public Prosecutions Lillian Siyunyi was hounded out of office through a choreographed agenda?

President Hakainde Hichilema qualified this by claiming “we had a DPP who did not support the fight against corruption,” when he swore in Mr Gilbert Phiri, their pick.

This time around, the Auditor-General Dr Dick Sichembe is a man under siege who sees the walls crumbling around him for unspecified acts of omission or commission.

Only the powers-that-be are privy to that information. But the signs have been there for all to see that it is just a matter of time before he is dumped.

That the new dawn administration has no confidence in the Office of the Auditor General started to surface immediately there was talk of Government contracting private auditing companies to audit the Ministry of Defence last year.

Government even in Parliament failed to give a satisfactory explanation why it contracted the international auditing firms to carry out the audit that has through the ways been done by the Auditor General.

We recall that even the Law Association of Zambia pointed out that only the Auditor General with the written consent from the President has the authority to contract auditing firms to condudct audits for the country’s defence and security wings.

LAZ president Langisani Zulu said the provisions of section 24(3) of the Public Audit Act No.29 of 2016 expressly restricts the Office of the Auditor General not to permit any unauthorised person, agent or specialist consultant to have access to any book, record, returns report or other document, or to enter the premises of any component of the defence force and the national security service or law enforcement agency.

The Ministry of Finance and National Planning had hired Grant Thornton and Price Waterhouse and Coopers to audit the books of accounts for the country’s defence and security units against the professional advice of the Office of the Auditor General. Did he cross the line?

Moreover, the pressure on the Auditor General’s office comes amidst controversy over the purported audit of the period that the UPND has been in government.

Ms Siyunyi was accused of not supporting the fight against corruption yet it was simply because she assumed her office during the Patriotic Front administration.

Now there is talk about the summoning of the Auditor General and his impending arrest by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) which Zambia Must Prosper vice-president Milner Katolo says is an act of intimidation by the UPND government in a bid to prevent the country’s supreme audit institution from exposing financial scandals committed by the new dawn administration.

When will purging end, if ever?