North-Western Province Permanent Secretary, Colonel Gladson Katambi, and his team have failed to explain before the Public Accounts Committee, how they awarded over 2 Million Kwacha loans to youth groups without appropriate documents.
This came to light when the committee raised queries on how 117 groups were given loans without having applied for the funds.
It was further discovered copies of National Registration Cards-NRCs, registration certificates of cooperatives and business proposals were never submitted by the purported beneficiaries.
Col Katambi who was accompanied by other senior government officials struggled to answer audit queries hence he acknowledged the glaring irregularities in the awarding of youth empowerment funds he deemed regrettable.
According to the Auditor General’s report for the financial year ended 31st December, contrary to the guidelines North-Western Provincial Administration awarded loans amounting to over K2 million to groups that were ineligible to access taxpayers’ money
Victoria Kayeye Yambani
