The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has failed to explain how it spent K3 billion in the financial year ending June 2015.
This was revealed when ministry officials appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (Pac) on Tuesday.
Officials from the ministry said they needed two weeks to get information on how the money was used, an answer that annoyed the parliamentary committee
Pac has said it is worried that if the ministry is unable to reconcile books for seven months, it is impractical that they can do the reconciliation in a space of two weeks.
Vice Chairperson of the committee, Kamlepo Kalua, said such issues affect implementation of the national budget.
“We have reasoned with the ministry to address this issue with the Auditor General (AG). The matter is outstanding. This could be a loophole for corruption. If they were not able to reconcile with the AG all this time, how can they reconcile within two weeks?” he said.
The K3 billion is out of the K5.3 billion disclosed in the financial statements that were not recorded in the Integrated Financial Management Information System in the Auditor General’s report.
On Monday, the committee finished getting oral responses from government ministries, departments and agencies on issues raised in the Auditor General’s report for the year ending June 30 2014.
On Tuesday it started scrutinising issues raised in the report for the year ending June 30 2015.
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