Mr Zitto Kabwe PHOTO|FILE
By Bernard Lugongo The Citizen
Posted Thursday, October 24 2013 at 02:00
Posted Thursday, October 24 2013 at 02:00
In Summary
“There is no agenda by Zitto here...all of us sat, deliberated and agreed on the matter,”
Dar es Salaam. Some members of the Parliamentary
Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) have defended their chairman, Mr
Zitto Kabwe, against attacks by political parties that accuse him of
personalising the issue of failure to audit their accounts.
In a separate interview with The Citizen
yesterday, the members of the committee said the statement by Mr Kabwe,
that the accounts of nine political parties were not audited for four
years, represented the team’s stance and not a personal decision by
their chairman.
“That was our statement as committee, not Zitto’s
personal idea as political parties assume,” said Mr Abdul Marombwa, a
member of the committee.
He said they were wondering why the political
parties were personalising the issue even though the matter emerged
after the committee met with the registrar of political parties, Mr
Francis Mutungi.
“There is no agenda by Zitto here...all of us sat, deliberated and agreed on the matter,” he said.
Another member of the committee, who declined to
be quoted, said the committee relied on what the law required the
political parties to do as far as their accounts were concerned.
He said the Political Parties (Amendment) Act,
2009, required that political parties submit their accounts to the CAG
for auditing, then audited reports be forwarded to the registrar.
But, he said, the registrar confirmed to the committee that no party among them had followed such procedures.
“That was not Zitto’s statement, it was the outcome of the meeting,” he insisted.
However, one member who asked for anonymity said Zitto’s statement was not discussed and agreed on the meeting.
“We didn’t discuss and agreed over such statement,
since Mr Zitto has already spoken to media, we can’t embarrass our
chairman,” he said.
Adding that even Speaker of the National Assembly, Anne Makinda was angered by the statement.
SOURCE: THE CITIZEN
SOURCE: THE CITIZEN
