Africa-Press – Tanzania. SPEAKER of the National Assembly, Mr Job Ndugai, has instructed the Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) to summon for grilling all leaders of public corporations that failed to submit financial accounts to the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) for audit.
He issued the directive yesterday in Parliament immediately after the question and answers session, and explained that such situation was dangerous for such large organisations not to be audited on the grounds of lacking financial accounting information.
“This is a gross negligence on the part of the organisation for lack of audible accounts. Therefore, I instruct PAC to summon quickly these organisations on a schedule that you will deem fit so that they can come and explain why they did not submit such accounts,” he said.
Mr Ndugai added: “Call the management immediately, including board chairpersons, to explain why things are not moving. It is dangerous for large corporations not to be audited. If they do not have good reasons we will advise the government, if possible, for the board of directors to be disbanded.”
The Speaker said that there are public institutions that had not prepared any accounts for the CAG to audit their accounts for the year 2019/2020.
He named some of them as Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH), Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute (MOI), Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco), Tanzania Mercantile Exchange (TMX), Unit Trust of Tanzania (UTT), Tanzania Fertiliser Company (TFC), Tanzania Postal Corporation and Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC).
The Speaker also warned other organisations to prepare their accounting statements after September 1, this year for auditing by the CAG.
“We blame district councils for having dirty and questionable reports while there are major corporations that don’t even have such accounts. That’s impossible, we cannot go that way. So PAC should give us the answers so that we can advise the government accordingly,”he stressed.
At the same time, the Speaker yesterday reiterated his earlier position to political parties that are expelling MPs to attach all required documents when writing a letter to him so that he could satisfy himself before making any decision against them.
“I made a decision here, and let me repeat, the speaker is leading this House in accordance with the rules, the constitution and the law. The decisions I make here are the decisions that will apply even to those who will follow after me,” he said.
He stressed that when writing to the speaker to make decisions, any party that dismisses MPs through the window should attach their constitution and the summary of the relevant sessions of the committee that expelled those lawmakers.
According to him, by doing so the parties will make it easier for him to observe justice and see if justice was done before he endorses his blessings.
“In doing so, let them know that I must cooperate with the registrar of political parties. Now, if you don’t have those attachments, how do we know it is the central committee of the party concerned. The only person who knows is the registrar of political parties,” he said.
The Speaker stressed that such attachments would enable him to summon the targeted MPs so that they could defend themselves before a decision is made against them.
Since justice issues require procedure, it was his firm position that such procedure would apply to him and even to his successors, thus party leaders who write letters to the Speaker should attach such documents since the constitution of political parties changes now and then.
“So for those of you who are interested, why are you afraid to attach copies of minutes of your meetings? Why are you hiding them? What’s in it? This is just a simple matter, you can just bring them to me so that I do my job, there is no problem,” explained Mr Ndugai.
