MBABANE:Madala Mhlanga,the Chairperson of the Parliament Public Accounts Committee(PAC) has announced the suspension of all PAC sittings after Prime Minister(PM) Russell Mmiso Dlamini’s statement casting aspersions on the Office of the Auditor General(AG),labelling or declaring it incompetent.
The PAC enforces reports of the Auditor General(AG) and the Prime Minister’s statements uttered during a Breakfast Meeting with editors on Thursday at the Mountain View,rendered the Parliament Committee tasked with demanding accountability of public funds literally redundant.
“We are suspending the sitting of the PAC while seeking clarity regarding the statements of the Prime Minister against the Auditor General”,said the PAC Chairman when addressing a press conference inside Parliament on Friday morning.
On another note,the PM attacked the Office of the AG after being questioned about the missing R210million under his watch.
The public funds allegedly disappeared while the Prime Minister was serving as the Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of the National Disaster Management Agency(NDMA).
“It is important that we have to begin to look at whether the reports of the Auditor General can now be relied upon. Yes I’m saying that, just hold on, just listen you need to listen to that.We now have to work on whether the reports of the Auditor General can be relied upon.Let me give you an example;the country now understands that there’s R180million missing from NDMA, there was never R180million that is missing. Now he has actually said, there’s another R30million,so people have began to write about R210million,all that is false I can surely tell you, it is false and in fact it points to the incompetence in that office”,said the Prime Minister(PM).
The country is currently facing a constitutional crisis as the PAC cannot independently perform its duties of demanding accountability of public funds as per the constitution after the Prime Minister’s statement attacking the Office of the Auditor General and declaring it incompetent.
House of Parliament.