Summoned!

BY IGNATIUS SSUUNA THE Prosecutor General’s office has summoned the Secretary Generals (SG) of the ministries of Education; and Public Services, Skills Development and Labour in connection with the tender irregularities raised in the Auditor General’s report for 2005. The two, Narcisse Musabeyezu (Education) and Marceline Mukarurangwa who were issued with the summons on Wednesday, are due to meet officials from the Prosecutor General’s office today. Secretaries General are the chief accountants in their respective ministries. The SGs had reportedly failed to show up in relation to the Auditor General’s (AG) report. In her 2005 report, the AG, Evelyn Kamagaju revealed that at least Frw3.6 billion was unaccounted for during that year. Also summoned are six executive secretaries and directors of Kigali City Council, Rwamagana Hospital and the National Programme Against Malaria (PNLP). “We want them to answer to certain questions,” a source from the Prosecutor General’s office said on Friday, adding that failure to honour the summons could get them arrested. “They could be hiding something because we wrote to them long ago but they never responded.” Early this year, the office wrote to secretary generals and directors of 46 institutions to explain the alleged loss of public funds indicated in the AG’s report. The Deputy Prosecutor General, Alphonse Hitiyaremye, confirmed the summons, saying they evoked article 49 of the criminal procedure to summon the leaders. Seven out of 46 institution heads have failed to respond. Mukarurangwa said: “It’s true we are going to explain our case.” The Office of the Prosecutor General is currently investigating 22 public institution leaders for allegedly getting involved in irregular tendering procedures, causing the country to lose millions of funds. Only four institutions probed have been cleared. Among those under probe are officials from the ministries of Infrastructure; Youth, Culture and Sports; Gender and Family Promotion; Internal Security; Lands, Environment, Forestry, Water; and Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. Other government departments under investigation are Ocir-THE – the tea authority, Kigali Institute of Science and Technology, Orinfor – public media group – and Kicukiro Secondary School. Investigations have so far implicated 12 institutions and project officials. Their files are now in court for prosecution. Prosecution has already dragged the National Tourism and Parks Office (ORTPN), Muhima Technical School and the National Commission of Refugees (CNER) to the courts of law for misappropriating public funds as indicated in the AG’s report. In recent years, AG reports have been indicating cases of officials circumventing the official tendering channels by handling cases that would have been handled by the National Tender Board (NTB). Some of the irregularities often unearthed by the AG reports are lack of proper books of accounts, failure to account for money spent and deliberate misplacement or inexistence of transaction documents such as delivery notes and proforma invoices, requisition forms, purchasing orders within different institutions. Some of the inconsistencies indicated in the AG’s 2005 Report included flouting the tendering procedures, with some institutions splitting tenders into smaller portions to circumvent channelling the tenders through the National Tender Board.