Government has appointed a team of officers to address the problem of unretired imprest by civil servants.
Ministry of Finance Permanent Secretary Anthony Undi says a team of officers from the office of the Accountant General and Auditor General have been appointed to sit on the committee tasked to resolve the problem.
Mr Undi was speaking when he appeared before the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee in Lusaka.
He told the Committee Chaired by Mbabala Member of Parliament, Emmanuel Hachipuka that the team’s terms of reference include devising means of avoiding the problem of unretired imprest.
Mr Undi says the team has been given five weeks to research and come up with recommendations.
The Permanent Secretary was responding to audit queries highlighted in the Auditor General’s report of 2009.
Earlier, Mr. Hachipuka wondered why the problem of unretired imprest keeps on appearing in the Auditor General’s annual reports.
[ZNBC]
Good action at last. Simply dont give them imprest.
rUBBISH!! THIS IS JUST MORE PROPAGANDA, THE 2008 AUDITOR GENERAL’S REPORT HAS NOT BEEN FULLY ADDRESSED HOW CAN YOU LIE TO US TODAY THAT THE 2009 WILL BE ADDRESSED??? NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN BROUGHT TO BOOK AND TODAY YOU THINK WE WILL BE CONVINCED THAT SOMETHING WILL CHANGE?? BANYANDULE IMWE, THE LIES WILL CATCH UP WITH YOU, BECAUSE TODAY WE ARE RECORDING AND WATCHING EVERYTHING YOU ARE SAYING, TOMORROW WE WILL SHOW YOU AND BRING YOU TO BOOK
Has George Mpombo retired his huge unretired impress.ACC where are you kashi? This man is making alot of noise yet he is another class of plunderers.
# 3 true, Mpompo makes too noise but his past deeds are in the same class as other plunderers.
Just publish the names of these characters in state media…instead diverting attention by focussing on useless things like gay rights and pact circus!
Yaaaa!!!!! More allowances for team members. Boma ni Boma.
#6 you are right,these are just fund raising ventures! During Dr Kaunda we used to carry LPOs for transport accommodation and meals not cash! But then the master Dribbler came on the scene,imprest become the in thing…a chap’s basic is K2Million but you give him imprest of K2billion!
You need to work in govt for you to understand this issue of imprest. To start with the main culprits are the senior guys starting from minister, deputy, PS, deputy PS, directors and deputy directors including other senior juniour officers. If the PS applies for an imprest going on tour who is an Accountant to ask Mr PS you need to retire the imprest. To start with its the chief Accountant who will say go ahead I have asked the PS to retire the imprest once back into office. Altenatively, if Accountants say no they use Junior officers to get imprest for them. Imprest is not an offence but can be recovered from someones salary nothing like ACC, and what. Ask the auditor General and Accountant General staff to retire all their imprest before they all for others. More allowances for those luc
I hope they will also retire their seating allowances after the program
Please confirm receipt and kindly note your kind response shall be highly appreciated. No.3 EASY DOES IT that is the right word! Easy does it! Do you really think those sharks would have left Mpombo alone if he hadn’t paid back any imprest! He was asked to move within 2 weeks and Musonda still stays in a government house even to date (6 months after his arrest for attempted murder)! Even our first Lady continued to draw her salary for a year after moving to State House! Someone was chewing FTJ’s salary without anyone reporting as they thought the President would blame them! That is Zambia for you! Selective Justice! Even the President wants to be paid before he completes 3 Years of service! We are jokers!
IGNORE:
Please confirm receipt and kindly note your kind response shall be highly appreciated.
Let us be real. Imprest is what makes certain government jobs attractive. The civil service salaries are an embarrasment.
Iam sure the records will grow legs soon.
what is this imprest kanshi? i am sure it’s some outdated dinosaur that needs to be completely done away with. nothing you can do can modernise it
Right move and hope this committee does not just sit and sit, without getting concrete output. Also, the members shall be told to sit out of normal working hours and take one case/problem at a time and start solving/getting monies back than going in circles.
This is just further waste of tax payers’ money, the report from the auditor general is all there and the thieves are known, arrest them!
Its a circus! You don’t need some silly committee to enforce regulations. If the controlling officers know that they will be fired for not enforcing regulations, I am sure this imprest nonsense would not arise!
Lets just be eating quitely gentlemen. If others are seeking to change the law to get their gratuity, who are we not to get our imprest. In Government, there is no one with clean hands starting from the office orderly to the Minister himself. Its common to see peole who are going out of office for 2 days getting imprest for 10 days. Who can deny this? Some office orderies have opened tunthemba selling cleaning materials and tissues from Government offices. Further, its also common to see Government vehicles loading cement along chilimbulu road. The whole Government system requires a review to ensure transparency and accountability. Those who are priviledged like Kapoko have taken advantage and have built lodges. It will take ages to curb abuse in Government as evidence by the Auditors Gene
Sam Mbewe, are you suggesting that we do nothing and turn our country into Mobutus Zire?!
Fire and arrest them!!
Musokotwane is the main culprit on this. He should have championed all measures to cut this evil from his vantage point, after all all the abused funds are from his office. This man is essentially a thug in disguise.
Simple solution is:
The moment a person takes an imprest, the same shall be as a deduction from payroll for the next month. Also, all accounts submitted for the imprest shall be put as a credit. There will never be a situation that an imprest goes unaccounted for. An example will clarify this. Mr. PS takes an advance of K10 million on 24th March. This shall be an input as deduction in April payroll. PS will be forced to account for the expenses he incurred against this imprest otherwise he will have to pay back this amount in april. If he accounts for this imprest, say K8.5 million only, his payroll will show a deduction of K10 million and a credit of K8.5 million, his hometake pay will be reduced by 1.5 million (10 minus8.5).
MMD can’t even respond over the 2008 fuel scandal for levy’s funeral trail and other money not accounted for in the same year but move on to 2009 and think this will cover up the theft from MMD for Rupiah Banda campaigns.
How much is Banda getting paid?
22.
There are some sane people in Zambia.
You are one of them who can see the rot and has answers but people wonder are MMD so dumb to not learn anything in the past 20 years?
These A.G reports happen every year and there is no comment from MMD.
MMD are using the defense of “If i choose to speak i may incriminate myself”.
You dont neet a committee for such a simple issue,just deduct from salaries whoever has not retired imprest after a week.This is not a complicated issue.
Good move by ministry of finance, we just hope that the findings will be communicated to all stakeholders. lastly Auditor General should continue with the good work, capacity build its staff so that objectivity, independence and other ethics be upheld. Let all auditors have a minimum of ACCA,CIMA.
Another avenue to waste tax payers money. Anyone who fails to retire an imprest must face displinary action. LT where is the article on LAZ telling RB that PVT is not a criminal offence.
The solution is simple you dont need to set up a team to probe this. Thats a waste of resources that will be paid as seating allowances. There is an ultimetum for retiring government imprest simply enforce it. Thats why we need a professional president in office so he can clean up the system. Pay civil servants decent salaries and they will tow the line. We need a culture change.
When you employ these civil servants,they swear that they will uphold their employment in highest ethical standards.I do not see any reason as to why you should appoint committe to look into such a simple issue.Accounting is based on objectivity,ethical,entegrity and professional tenets.Whoever,claims to be an accountant and does not apply such tenets then he is a liar.Even civil servants should uphold highest standard of ethics.It is folly and absurd to keep people in the system who do not abide by ethical standards.They are a cost to the nation owing to the resources they drain in their pockets.I feel appointing a commision to look into issue of impress management is a sheer waste of time and resources.The best is to act and act decisively.Theft of public resources should not be condoned
For real we do not need these enforcers, as they may also need more imprest controlling officers are enough to carry this job.