FORMER attorney general Musa Mwenya says revelations in the Auditor General’s Report that NAPSA paid amounts totalling K2,381,249 in sitting allowances to members of staff who attended board meetings without authority is daylight robbery.
Responding to a press query, Mwenye said the Audit findings at NAPSA did not come as a surprise to him because they epitomised former president Edgar Lungu’s government.
He said it was also unfortunate that NAPSA decided to procure personal vehicles instead of safeguarding citizens’ money.
“Although the Auditor General’s revelations over NAPSA are sad, they are not surprising. I am personally not surprised because the happenings at NAPSA epitomized former president Edgar Lungu’s government. What we saw in the past seven years can only be described as a kleptocracy,” Mwenye said.
“NAPSA is supposed to be wisely investing the employees’ contributions so that the workers of Zambia can get a return from the contributions they make. In fact, NAPSA is very punitive to employers and the law allows them to charge huge penalties and interest on late contributions. Instead of safeguarding these monies, they instead decide to buy expensive vehicles contrary to policies. In addition, they decide to pay employees board sitting allowances! How do you pay full time employees sitting allowances for doing work during office hours that they receive a salary for? This is daylight robbery.”
Mwenye said President Hakainde Hichilema had a task to clean up the corruption which was in Lungu’s government.
“It will become increasingly clear that very few institutions and parastatals were spared from wasteful expenditure, impunity and blatant grand corruption that we saw in the past seven years. It was the culture of president Lungu’s government for the officials to enjoy as much as possible at the expense of the Zambian people and NAPSA and other parastatals were following the lead of their masters in government. President Hichilema has a huge task on his hands to clean up what became endemic corruption in the government of president Lungu,” said Mwenye.
The Auditor General’s Report on the Accounts of Parastatal Bodies for the financial year ended 31st December 2019 revealed that NAPSA procured 28 motor vehicles costing K23.9 million for members of staff against government guidelines.
