The parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has tasked the Workforce Development Authority (WDA) to explain the alleged mismanagement of public funds as indicated in the Auditor General’s (AG) report.
WDA appeared before PAC on Tuesday 15, September 2020 to respond to issues raised in AG’s 2018/19 report which showed Rwf15 billion as unaccounted for, while compliance to auditor general’s recommendations remained low at 39% instead of the required 60% minimum.
MP Jeanne d’Arc Uwimanimpaye, a PAC member who steered the public hearing on WDA informed the committee that the institution has failed to comply with reports from OAG’s report since 2016.
Among several issues under compliance, the report showed that WDA failed to explain an instance in which the paid extra costs of Rwf16.5million to a private importer for trucks that had over stayed at customs clearance for 22 days loaded with construction materials
WDA also could not explain why they never reported five tenders worth Rwf2,581,000,000 for the last two years of which the WDA Director General, Pascal Gatabazi said that they are not proud of such administrative errors committed in the institution.
Officials will be responding to findings of the Auditor General before PAC
Gatabazi also found no genuine justification why they were fined with Rwf8million due to delays in paying taxes.
“There is no single reason why we should delay paying taxes,” Gatabazi told parliament.
In other cases of value for money, the OAG report indicated that WDA used over Rwf600 million to purchase construction materials for a Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) school but the structures remained incomplete and materials idle.
“The structures were not completed because we were disappointed by contractors that is why the construction materials are lying idle,” Gatabazi explained.
The construction of this TVET School was supposed to be completed in March 2020 and WDA had been given up to this April to appear again before PAC and explain progress made on the areas sighted in the AG’s report.
