By Isaac Zulu
Former Defence Davies Chama says even if ownership of the private auditing firms were to be Zambian, not all the Zambians are loyal to the state.
Speaking in an interview, Chama, who is former Defence Minister said that the decision taken by the UPND administration to award contracts to private audit firms to carry out forensic audit in the Defence Force is unprecedented, endangers the security of the state and smells some high level of corruption.
“It is completely wrong, and it endangers the security of the state. This whole thing smells some high level of corruption. You cannot expose sensitive information bordering on the security of the state to private institutions. It has never happened in this country,” Chama explained. “Even in other jurisdictions they cannot expose sensitive information to foreigners.”
Chama, who is also PF national chairman, said that even if the private auditing firms in question were Zambian, it would still be wrong to contract them to audit security wings because “not all Zambians are loyal to state.”
“And the ownership of those companies is not known. Even if the ownership of the private auditing firms was Zambian; you cannot, I repeat you cannot engage a private company to audit Defence Forces. Some Zambians are loyal to the state and others are not loyal to the state,” Chama said. “But with this new dawn government you have very compromised people who don’t consider and don’t care about the security of the state. I don’t know how to describe these fellas.”
He said that the office of the Auditor General has qualified and competent personnel to carry out forensic audits in the Zambian Defence Forces.
He called for the cancellation of contracts to private auditing firms to carry out audit works in Defence Forces, adding that an inquiry should be instituted to establish how such a decision was arrived at.
“To begin with, the contract should not exist, it should not exist. And if a mistake was made, hoping that audit works have not yet started, the contract should be cancelled immediately,” Chama said. “Of course the Vice-President said while in Parliament that these things (contracts) exist. And she is the second in command in this country. And the government spokesperson said that the responses that the Vice-President gave in Parliament were correct. So they need to reverse this decision. An inquiry should also be instituted to know how this happened. How did it happen?”
Chama advised Defence Minister Ambrose Lufuma to be firm and give the Head of State correct advice regarding his Ministry.
“I may excuse the Minister of Defence because when audits are being instituted you are not informed that your Ministry or institution will be audited. So the Commander in Chief, the Auditor General and the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Defence knew that these are the private auditing firms that have been contracted to carry out some audit works. And now that this has come to his attention, the Minister of Defence should approach the President so that the right thing is done,” said Chama.
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