Ombudsman Grace Malera has disclosed that her organisation failed to access K58.33 million in the 2022-23 fiscal year due to technical challenges in the Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis).
Malera disclosed this in Lilongwe Tuesday, when she presented an annual report of her office to the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament.
She said failure to access the funds culminated in a backlog of cases and failure of some investigations that have to be carried out.
“The failure also contributed to prolonged delays in finalising the computation of past pension liabilities for members of staff that were in employment before 1st July 2012,” Malera said.
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She also bemoaned the information blackout given to her office by some government agencies.
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“In the year under review, the Office of the Ombudsman faced a lot of challenges like outright unresponsiveness by some ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs),” Malera said.
Legal Affairs Committee Chairperson Albert Mbawala has since warned that all MDAs that are not complying with the Ombudsman’s determinations will soon face the law.
“We have asked the Ombudsman to give us names of MDAs that are not complying with determinations of her office so that they should face our committee.
“We will make sure that we follow up on funding issues with the Treasury and during the mid-term meeting of Parliament soon,” Mbawala said
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The report has, among other things, highlighted that women continue to lag behind when it comes to reporting complaints to the Office of the Ombudsman.
This has been attributed to low education levels of most women compared to men as well as cultural beliefs.
Meanwhile, Office of the Ombudsman Executive Secretary Alinafe Malunga has disclosed that the office is owing its landlord almost K50 million in rental arrears from October 2022 to June this year.
“Ministry of Lands has only been committing to pay the outstanding rentals, forcing the landlord to issue notices of closure to the office many times,” Malunga said
The report has indicated that 1,947 complaints were handled by the Ombudsman in the year under review, out of which 291 were newly received and 1,656 were carried over from the year 2021.
