The Southern Africa Development Community Organization of Public Accounts Committees (SADCOPAC) says it wants to make sure that it builds capacity in Public Accounts Committees in the region to ensure that they carry out their oversight mandate effectively.
Speaking during the official opening of the peer review and training for members of PAC and officials assisting oversight Committees in Botswana Gaborone, SADCOPAC Chairperson Honourable Warren Chisha Mwambazi said the organisation wanted to see to it that Public Accounts Committees provided the much needed oversight over the Executive.
“For us as SADCOPAC Executive, this is a very momentous occasion that we have come to Botswana to carry out a peer review process which we have been carrying out in the SADC region. We have done this in Seychelles, Namibia and Mauritius just to ensure that we continue to benchmark and see how other jurisdictions as Public Accounts Committees in the region are operating to ensure that they are effective as well as to provide the much-needed oversight in the Executive, to ensure that there is accountability and good governance in our various countries,” Hon. Mwambazi said.
“For us as we proceed as SADCOPAC, we want to ensure that we have the best practice in the region vis-à-vis, also issues of all this coming up of model laws on the SADC region to ensure that there is effective participation by the Office of the Auditor General and other permanent witnesses to the Public Accounts Committee in the region. Without the Office of the Auditor General, the functionalities of the Public Accounts Committees cannot go
well.”
Hon. Mwambazi, who is also the chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee in Zambia, said the other role of SADCOPAC was to ensure that it built capacity in Public Account Committees in the region to ensure that they carried out their oversight mandate effectively.
Meanwhile, the acting Speaker in Botswana Honorable Pono Moatlhodi said Parliamentary oversight was critical in achieving financial accountability.
Parliamentary oversight function is critical in achieving improved financial accountability and promoting good governance in the Public Sector and in turn this increases public confidence in the credibility of Government Institutions,” Hon. Moatlhodi said.
He said the SADC Organization of Public Accounts Committees was therefore a brainchild of this noble ideal.
“With international focus on improving governance institutions and country systems, Many World Parliaments today are seeking to improve their performance among other things, to become more open, independent, accountable, and overly responsive,”
Hon. Moatlhodi added that there was need to improve the quality and performance of the Public Accounts Committees and other financial oversight bodies, by strengthening their requisite support staff in terms of qualifications and experiential knowledge.
“Our Public Accounts Committees must put in place and strengthen strategies to detect and prevent lack of prudent financial planning; lack of oversight in the procurement processes of the State; and possible wastage of public funds emanating from inherent corruptive practices.” said Hon. Moatlhodi.
The training was attended by participants from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana and Eswatini.
Hon. Mwambazi was accompanied by National Assembly of Zambia Committee Clerk Mr. Moses Chuba.
SADCOPAC is an association of the Public Accounts Committee from SADC member states. It was launched in October 2003.
It is important that those that provide oversight are themselves clean. You cannot provide oversight if your hands are dirty.