Senators have called for more studies on approaches to hold public officials more accountable as a way to curtail wasteful expenditure of taxpayers’ money. The lawmakers said this on Tuesday as the senatorial Standing Committee on Economic Development dissected the 2013/14 Auditor-General’s report. The senators raised concerns over the major public institutions, some of which take the lion’s share of Budget Allocations, yet continue to be debt- and loss-ridden. The institutions in question, as reported by the AG, include Rwanda Social Security Board, former Electricity, Water and Sanitation Authority (EWSA), Rwanda Revenue Authority, ONATRACOM and Rwanda Broadcasting Agency. According to the report, of the 131 public entities audited, only 36 per cent recorded a clean audit opinion, an increase of two per cent from the previous report. However, Senator Laurent Nkusi, a member of the committee, challenged what the report termed improvement in an area of auditing arguing that some institutions received undeserving clean audits. “Previously, we agreed as senators that there is a need to have a clean audit report within and outside institutions,” he said, citing a case of the Finance and Economic Planning ministry that had a clean audit report as an institution but failed to have one as the Treasury. ‘Inept boards’ Nkusi also criticised boards of directors for institutions, saying that the primary role of these boards was that of oversight yet they are seemingly “dysfunctional.” According to the senator, the dormancy of the boards has caused loss of billions of francs in some of the institutions, mostly RSSB, which, according to report, is accountable for more than Rwf.27 billion in wasteful expenditure and losses. “We will have to do an interactive assessment that will enable us to do a prospective analysis in a bid to make informed recommendations and proper orientation for these institutions,” Nkusi added. The senators raised concerns over RSSB housing projects with low or no occupation rate, mostly for infrastructure that were built in remote areas of the country. They were reacting mainly to the so-called ‘pension plazas’ that have been built in different towns in the country. “Some of these complexes like in Karongi, Musanze and Rwamagana districts have no tenants, yet government spent billions of francs on them. Although the question remains on who should take the blame, it shows that inadequate feasibility studies are done prior to such investments,” Senator Evariste Bizimana said. For residential units, Bizimana said the main beneficiaries to RSSB housing projects should be public servants, although this has not been the case due to prohibitive rent in many of RSSB housing projects. The AG, in compiling the 2013/14 report, for the first time, audited the pension body following uproars by members of the public and legislators that the board, entrusted with a lot of funds, was never audited. Among others, the report noted that there are various cases where RSSB had not been able to recover loans granted or proceeds from disposal of assets with potential loss of funds totaling Rwf16.6 billion. In a recent interview with The New Times, the Director-General of RSSB, Jonathan Gatera, said there were some governance issues but insisted they were being addressed such as involving board of directors in all investment decisions. “However, the investment made not make any losses as reported; the issue was investments made that take long to provide returns and payment from certain sales that had not yet been received at the time of the audit,” Gatera said. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
