The National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) says time is over for financial recklessness, abuse, plunder and pilferage in the local authorities.

The NLGFC’s Executive Director Mr. Alifeyo Banda said this following the arrest by the Fiscal Police of two accounts officers on suspicion of theft and abuse of funds by public servants at Mchinji District Council.

‘It was observed that some Accounts Personnel were duplicating payments in the Local Authorities - Integrated Financial Management Information System (LA - IFMIS) and concealing the payments by deleting the transactions and processing these payments without any relevant documentation. The council was not doing bank reconciliations and was not submitting financial reports contrary to the Public Finance Management Act and the Local Government Act’, said Banda.

Banda said, ‘upon NLGFC technical  financial review of the council LA-IFMIS,  the bank statements and paid cheque images at the bank, it came out that the payments had gone through and also showed whose names the cheques were in’.

In the syndicate, over MK40million is suspected to have been misappropriated.

The financial review undertaken by the NLGFC also indicates that there were several suspected cases of forgery as well as high possibility of more rot.

Meanwhile, the NLGFC as per its functions has  referred the issue to the National Audit Office for a forensic audit on top of the current legal process in the court of law.