Colleen Zamba to appear before Pac today
Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) Colleen Zamba is scheduled to appear before parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (Pac) in Lilongwe today.
Zamba is expected to answer queries regarding performance of the country’s civil service.
Pac Chairperson Mark Botomani confirmed the development yesterday but could not shed more light on the meeting’s finer details.
“I can confirm that we are indeed meeting the SPC on Wednesday and that’s all from me,” Botomani said.
Pac sources confided in Daily Times Tuesday that the committee has a number of issues with Zamba, including audit queries and her plans to discipline civil servants who continue to disregard laid down public expenditure procedures.
The source said the committee is generally concerned with Zamba’s general lack of implementation of parliamentary recommendations on several issues.
Zamba was not immediately available to comment on the matter yesterday.
This would be the first time for her to appear before Pac after failing to do so in August last year. At that time, she had delegated her deputy Janet Banda.
According to Pac, Zamba failed to make the appearance because she had just returned from an international assignment, hence she did not have time to prepare for the meeting.
However, the parliamentarians sent Banda back, insisting that they wanted to meet Zamba as head of the civil service.
On November 4 last year, Zamba was due to appear before the Parliamentary Joint Committee inquiring into the missing of K750 million meant for the Affordable Input Programme but was sent back after the committee resolved not to interview her.
During the last sitting of parliament, members of the opposition side threatened to reject the Office of the President and Cabinet vote, citing Zamba’s failure to appear before parliamentary committees to account for expenditure.
The vote was only passed after leader of the house Richard Chimwendo Banda assured the house that she was ready to face the legislators.
