ONGWEDIVA – The Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts and Economy Peter Kazongominja is dissatisfied with some local authorities that could not account for transactions for the year under review.
Some of the unaccounted for transactions date back to 2015.
He singled out Eenhana and the Oshakati Town Council whose hearings could not proceed as they could not provide the committee with substantive answers.
Their hearings will be heard in Windhoek on a date still to be announced.
The Eenhana Town Council allegedly presented the committee with answers that were not corresponding to the questions asked and instead blamed the auditors for the discrepancies in their report.
“Eenhana Town Council hearing has been postponed because the council could not even present an answer on what transpired during that financial year,” said the chairperson.
“Proceedings at the Oshakati Town Council were cancelled during the hearing because there are a lot of personal issues affecting the work of the council,” the chairman said.
According to Kazongominja, the Oshakati Town Council, in particular these past four years, has not been able to change its status quo in order to improve its operations.
The CEO of Eenhana Town Council Walde Ndevashiya said their hearing was postponed because it started late and as such could not boil over to the following day because there were other local authorities slated for that day.
He said some of the answers they were required to give were already presented to the auditors from the Auditor General’s office that audited their work.
Okahao Town Council was challenged by capacity of staff, however the CEO Timoteus Namwandi said they have commenced to address the problem and are ready to get the council out of the mess it finds itself.
Ondangwa Town Council is still struggling to adopt and align itself to the new Public Procurement Act.
Some of the pressing issues unearthed in the committee’s visit includes the transfer of funds to another project without authorisation or a council resolution.
Equally, in some instances there were also no supporting documents for certain transactions, making it difficult to detect.
The chairperson said the purpose of the countrywide visits is to ensure that money allocated to local authorities and regional councils is used for the intended purposes.