After years of exposure to practices such as plunder of public resources, typified by Cashgate, the happiness of the citizenry lies in our leaders’ ability to lay down, forever, our burden-of-fear that public funds are at the abuser’s fingertips.
But, if reports from the office of the Auditor General (AG) and warning from well-wishers such as Oxfam are anything to go by, our resources remain at risk, which puts in jeopardy the nation’s development goals.
News that the Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis)—which led to massive plunder of public funds— remains prone to abuse does not inspire confidence in us.
To make matters worse, public officials have been coming up with snappy answers when asked about progress made in procuring new Ifmis software. In the 2018/19 budget statement, for example, Finance, Economic Planning and Development Minister Goodall Gondwe deflated our hopes when he announced that the government has set aside a fortune for the procurement of a new Ifmis.
Surprisingly, the government said the same thing in the 2017/18 budget statement, in which it indicated that it intended to procure a new Ifmis with the aim of sealing holes in the system currently in use. Only when cornered did the minister change tune, saying the money budgeted for in the 2018/19 fiscal year is for the training of personnel that will use the new system.
Worse still, it emerged that the personnel were already trained. Malawians have, as usual, been left in the dark.
Whatever the case, the taxpayer is interested in seeing a system that delivers positive results, as opposed to the system we are using which, if sentiments raised by the AG are anything to go by, cannot carry out all procurement processes.
Every Malawian who loves this country should be worried that only eight modules out of 15 are working on the new platform, which means someone can still take advantage of delays to put into effect a new system to embark on self-enrichment moves.
As things stand, the Ifmis is a pot with a broken bottom. What this does is to erode the confidence Malawians, and development partners, have in our financial systems.
Unfortunately, the loser is the ordinary Malawian; the very Malawian who is subjected to high levels of unemployment, nepotism, broken promises and patronising behaviour among other vices.
To make matters worse, the Public Appointments Committee has lame powers as it cannot take more drastic actions on wayward public officers other than recommending to other authorities.
Moving forward, let us put all suspicions on Ifmis to rest by telling Malawians at what stage we are in sealing prevalent holes. Only after that can Malawians rest assured that their hard-earned funds are in safe hands.
After all, a system that does not inspire confidence is not worth its name.
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