The Pan African
Parliament on Wednesday considered and adopted the report of the Committee on
Audit and Public Accounts (CAPA) which was generated from the Sittings of the
Committee held from August 5 to 8, 2019 to review audit reports on the
activities of the Pan African Parliament.
Presenting the 33
page Committee Report, the Chairperson Hon.
Sekou Fantamadi TRAORE disclosed that the Committee reviewed the audit
reports of the Office of the Internal Audit of PAP and the Board of External
Auditors whose function it is to audit the accounts of the African Union (AU).
The documents reviewed by the Committee included the Report of the Board of
External Auditors of the AU on PAP for the year ended 31st December
2018; the Office of Internal Audit Report on Budget Implementation of PAP for
the Year ended 31st December 2018 and the implementation status of the
recommendations of the CAPA and Board of External Auditors from October 2016 to
May 2019.
Issues relating to the services of the PAP
Hon. Traore stated that the audit review revealed that
PAP does not have a Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) and Business Continuity Plan
(BCP) in place. He disclosed that the essence of the DRP and BCP is to “safeguard
the activities of the Parliament and ensure that disruption of its activities is
mitigated in the event of any unforeseen event that may impact on its ability
to continue in existence or functioning as an organ of the AU”.
The CAPA Report
noted that in the event of any disaster, the work of PAP will be negatively
affected and may constitute a threat to its ability to render services pursuant
to its mandate. The Committee therefore recommended that work on the DRB and
BCP should be expedited and properly communicated to every member of staff so
as to safeguard the activities of the Parliament and ensure that disruption of
activities is mitigated in the event of any threat to business continuity.
High turnover of Clerks of Parliament
The Report also highlighted
the high turnover of Clerks of Parliament which in its opinion may lead to
ineffectiveness of the PAP operations. It also contended that the Bureau having
the power to terminate the employment of the Clerk, may undermine the independence
of the Clerk and the ability of the Secretariat to discharge its duties and
therefore recommended that the position of the Clerk should be protected to
ensure stability and effective service delivery in the administration of PAP.
The Committee also
recommended that the appointment and removal of Clerks should be done through
due process as prescribed in the African Union Staff Regulations and Rules,
2010. CAPA also recommended that the roles of the President of the Parliament
and the Clerk should be clearly delineated in accordance with the provisions of
Rules 17 and 21 of the Parliament’s Rules of Procedure.
Non-compliance with AU Procurement approval
process
The Report noted
that a review of the procurement made in respect of the First Ordinary Session
of the Fifth Parliament in October 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda showed that the
amount spent for such items as procurement of accommodations, conference
facilities, interpretation equipment were not approved by the Internal
Procurement Committee (IPC)of PAP. The Report noted that the IPC was only
consulted after the contracts had been signed noting that the amount involved
was above the PAP approved threshold of $100,000 as provided in the AU
Procurement Mannual.
This posed a risk
of over-estimation and over-payment of expenses with the attendant negative
publicity to the PAP and possibly resulting in Development Partners and other
stakeholders not having confidence in the ability of the parliament to manage
its funds to achieve value for money. CAPA therefore recommended that PAP
management should always adhere to the procurement process outlined in the AU
Procurement Manual pointing out that poor and late planning results in hasty
and expensive procurement decisions such as what happened in Kigali.
Inadequate staffing of PAP Secretariat
CAPA reported that
during its interactions with the Management staff of PAP, it discovered that
all the units in PAP are facing inadequate staffing situation. It also noted
that the current staff structure which was approved by the AU Policy organs in
2012 was the proposed structure at the beginning of the Parliament in 2004 and
has therefore become grossly inadequate to support the current level of
operations and activities of the parliament.
It therefore
recommended that action should be expedited on the review of the structure of
the Parliament and vacant positions existing in the present structure should be
filled. It also urged the Management to explore the possibility of temporary
short-term employment of staff in areas requiring urgent attention.
Overview of the 2018 PAP Budget and its
implementation
The CAPA Report
stated that the overall budget utilization rate achieved by the PAP in 2018 was
73% and that operational budget utilization rate was 83% while the execution rate
was 19%. This posed the risk of budget cuts by the AU Policy Organs and
recommended that the management of PAP needs to identify the reasons why it
could not achieve the expected threshold and the impact on the programs and
activities of the Parliament.
Delays in the implementation of audit recommendations
A review of the
Consolidated Report of the CAPA implementation level of on audit issues raised
from October 2016 to May 2018 showed that 45 out of 66 recommendations were
neither implemented nor in progress. It noted that the AU Executive Council had
during its 31st Ordinary Session took a decision to institute
financial sanctions for non-performance of departments both in terms of the rate of their previous
budget execution and the implementation rate of audit recommendations.
The Committee noted
that PAP is already suffering the consequence of non-implementation of audit
recommendations as the budget presented by PAP was cut by the Executive Council
and therefore recommended that PAP’s Bureau should ensure that the Internal
Audit Progress Committee performs its role effectively.
Contributing to the
debates after the presentation of the CAPA report, Hon. Abdallah Barkat IBRAHIM (Djibouti) questioned the low
implementation of the budget and called for serious sanction on those who have
been found wanting by the audit report. Hon.
Gloriose NIMENYA (Burundi) commended CAPA for a job well done and called
for measures to ensure that mistakes of the past do not reoccur. NIMENYA noted the shortage of staff and
urged adherence to AU Rules and Regulations on staff recruitment
In his
contribution, Hon. Toussant MANGA
(Senegal) called for the enlargement of the number of parliamentarians in
CAPA above the current 15 members in view of the enormity of their
responsibility. He stated that the poor implementation of the program budget
could be attributed to lack of planning, noting that planning is very important
if PAP is to execute its mandate. Hon.
MANGA then suggested that each Committee should be informed of its budget
amount to enable it to begin to plan on how to carry out its programs ahead of
time.
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