Four years have elapsed without the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament auditing the National Audit Office (NAO), Yoneco FM understands. 

This has been disclosed in Lilongwe during a meeting which the Budget and Public Accounts Cluster of Parliament had with officials from NAO aiming at scrutinising funds allocated to the Office in the 2021/2021 budget estimates.

According to the Cluster`s co-chairperson Gladys Ganda, coronavirus pandemic and the recent political instability are the major factors that contributed to the development.

Ganda has however relayed an assurance that the Committee will Audit NAO and those plans are currently underway to identify the Auditor.

“Yes, there is that issue that is outstanding, the Auditor is supposed to be audited as well to give assurance that audits that are being carried are in good order.

“What I can say for now is that we are in the process of identifying the auditor to carry out the task, last year we didn’t do that because of covid issues, the previous year there was a number of things happening in this country politically and the year before there was lack of resources,” said Ganda.

Meanwhile, NAO has expressed worry over reduced funding to the Office saying that the underfunding will cripple operations of the Office.

“There is a ceiling which the Minister of Finance provided to us and we are saying that would not be adequate for us to carry out the work as we should.

“While we are talking about nine months, for us we are going to audit twelve months so obviously the amount of work is likely to the same as for the past financial year,” said NAO spokesperson, Rabson Kagwamminga.

According to Kagwamminga, the Office has an efficiency of about K1 billion.