{"id":58916,"date":"2023-11-23T16:39:54","date_gmt":"2023-11-23T16:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials"},"modified":"2023-11-23T17:18:58","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T17:18:58","slug":"presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials","title":{"rendered":"Presidency grilled over missing financials"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. <\/strong><\/span>The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts last week put the Office of the President on notice for several irregularities, including not providing supporting documentation, not completing some bank reconciliations and paying money to third parties.<\/p>\n

During a Parliamentary hearing last week, the committee also voiced concerns about the marginalised people\u2019s programme, particularly regarding the San development bank account. Before moving to the gender ministry, the marginalised programme was hosted in the Office of the President. Last week\u2019s hearing was based on the Auditor General (AG)\u2019s reports on the accounts of the Office of the President for the financial years ended 2019, 2020 and 2021. These annual reports were tabled in Parliament a few months ago.<\/p>\n

Auditor General Junias Kandjeke stated the financial information provided by the Office of the President in the 2020 report was limited in scope. The AG\u2019s report reads that on 28 July 2019, a Presidency staff member was given an amount of almost N$619 000 for the payment of students and casual workers in the Kavango East and Zambezi regions.<\/p>\n

Per the general expense form, this work was carried out from November 2018 to February 2019. However, of the total amount, the staff member reportedly handed over just shy of N$42 000 for 20 students and casual workers to a third party.<\/p>\n

In this regard, the AG highlighted that there were no appointment letters or any other documents indicating the connection between the third party and the payees stipulated on the pay sheet. One of the controls, Kandjeke stated, is that money should never be paid to any other person but the payee.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the beneficiaries are underage, and we were made to believe the third parties were caretakers who signed on the beneficiary\u2019s behalf,\u201d said Alma Nambundunga, chief of administration at the Office of the President, in response to why money was sent to a third party without the required paperwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, these guardians do not have legal guardianship for these kids. But we will see how to prove to the House that these were the guardians of the kids,\u201d explained Golda Kazekondjo, who served as paymaster in the Presidency at the time.<\/p>\n

In addition, the AG asserted that the Presidency failed to follow up with beneficiaries as to whether they received the money. Kazekondjo admitted it was an oversight not to follow up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a lie! The auditors said they have been fighting to get the evidence of guardianship \u2013 and nothing up to now. They are playing tricks with this committee. They probably want to go generate that evidence. Five beneficiaries, one guardian, no evidence, and nothing provided to the auditors. Unacceptable!\u201d charged the leader of the Landless People\u2019s Movement, Bernadus Swartbooi, who also serves on the public accounts committee.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the committee asked if the Presidency conducted any bank reconciliation and questioned why they did not present relevant documents to the AG as requested.<\/p>\n

In response, a financial advisor in the Office of the President Monica Eises contended that bank reconciliation was done. However, this is in contradiction to Nambundunga, who maintained no bank reconciliations were done at all.<\/p>\n

Eises argued the reconciliation concerned payment vouchers that were captured on an accounting programme to verify if necessary supporting documents accompanied payments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue of the reconciliation not being submitted is based on the ineffective filing system we had in place. I don\u2019t know what happened, but there is a file with all documentation that is missing in action. We did not open any case of theft yet, but we are looking at how we can retrieve that information to submit to the AG,\u201d Eises explained.<\/p>\n

However, Parliamentarian Inna Hengari could not believe what was presented to the AG. She, therefore, requested for relevant filing clerks to be held accountable for the missing documents and for any culprits to be brought to book.<\/p>\n

The AG\u2019s report further alleges that during the 2020 financial year, an audit of the bank account of the San Development Programme concluded similar findings. These discrepancies were highlighted in the 2018\/19 audit report \u2013 but apparently, no improvement was observed in account controls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe office paid various suppliers for delivery of food items of the Feeding Programme, and monthly allowances for marginalised students, learners and casual workers from the San Development bank account. However, 13 payment vouchers, amounting to N$311 132.56, were not provided for audit purposes,\u201d the report reads. The AG, therefore, recommended the Presidency ensure payment vouchers are filed and provided for audit purposes.<\/p>\n

In response, management in the Presidency stated the relevant vouchers could not be found. The AG also expressed concern about Presidency staff members, who travelled with large amounts of cash without proper security. This, the AG stated, poses a serious security risk.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Namibia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts last week put the Office of the President on notice for several irregularities, including not providing supporting documentation, not completing some bank reconciliations and paying money to third parties. During a Parliamentary hearing last week, the committee also voiced concerns about the marginalised people\u2019s programme, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":58914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,12],"tags":[234,236,233],"class_list":["post-58916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-namibia","tag-namibia"],"yoast_head":"\nPresidency grilled over missing financials - Namibia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts last week put the Office of the President on notice for several ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Presidency grilled over missing financials\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts last week put the Office of the President on notice for several ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Namibia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-11-23T16:39:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-23T17:18:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2023\/11\/sm_1700747197.225161.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"479\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Presidency grilled over missing financials\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-11-23T16:39:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-23T17:18:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials\"},\"wordCount\":802,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2023\/11\/sm_1700747197.225161.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"africa press\",\"Africa Press-Namibia\",\"namibia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/presidency-grilled-over-missing-financials\",\"name\":\"Presidency grilled over missing financials - 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