Africa-Press – Lesotho. The acting Auditor General report has yet again made startling revelations on the irregularities and malpractices of the public funds. From the previous report, there seem to be very little effort to address the previously flagged irregularities.
Tabling the Audit Report on the Consolidated Financial Statements of the Government of Lesotho for the Year Ended 31st March 2021, Monica Besetsa revealed that an eye-tearing figure of M6.1 billion was not accounted for.
This is almost double increase from the previous Auditor General’s report, which uncovered that M3.4 billion could not be accounted for the financial year 2020/2021.
She complained about the recurring anomalies wherein there is an unexplained differences on cash balances, adding that this problem had been persistent since 2009/2010 financial year.
Besetsa further took swipe of the irregular treatment made on the advances from the Contingencies Fund. According to the report, the Accountant-General has not been operating advance accounts from as way back as April 2009.
The report says: “Advance warrants from the Contingencies Fund are irregularly treated as release warrants and thereby increasing approved funds by Parliament with unapproved funds. This also makes it difficult to determine as to whether the funds were applied for intended purposes. ”
“Section 34 (1) of the Public Financial Management and Accountability (PFMA) Act 2011 requires a spending unit of Government to prepare quarterly and annual reports which should include details of the programme results achieved, including the impact of new policies implemented in that year and in the previous years, and set out the performance indicators used to assess the programme.
“Section 34 (9) further requires that a minister responsible for a spending unit should present an annual report to Parliament within four months of the end of the financial year to which it relates.
There has been non-compliance to the requirements of PFMA Act, as ministers responsible for spending units have not presented annual reports to Parliament,” report uncovered.
Besetsa said Section 112 (3)(b) of the Constitution directs that for every financial year, the money that had been expended for whatever purposes in excess of the originally appropriated amount in the Appropriation Act, requires that a statement of excess showing the sums spent be made before both Houses of Parliament.
The Auditor-General further expressed “dissatisfaction” due to government funded projects that do not prepare financial statements despite warning them to in the previous report.
On the noted improvements Besetsa said now the Accountant General knew the number of bank accounts that the government holds and that she was keeping record, as last time she did not know the exact figure.
She further said the bank had availed accurate information with exception of the Standard Lesotho Bank whose softcopy and hardcopy submissions were not easily reconciled as they differed.
The Auditor-General noted that Public Financial Management Act (PMFA) requires the Ministers to report to parliament on the usage of funds after every four months. In her audit opinion, she said the financial statements of the government do not represent the true picture as there are cash differences.
The Accountant-General who also doubles as the head of the Treasury Department within the Ministry of Finance ‘Malehlohonolo Mahase had in 2021 presented before the parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) the government’s report titled ‘Road Map from Adverse to Clean Audit Report’ that was aimed at achieving clean audit.
The Accountant General told the Committee that roadmap is the “national commitment to improve the Public Financial Management performance from all levels of governance”. She also said, the last time the government had a clean audit was in 1973/1974 financial year.
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