Maun Administrative Authority (MAA) Chairman Vepaune Moreti has confirmed that his sub council is marred with corruption, and further revealed that public procurement and tender allocations remain major hotbeds of the malfeasance.
“When tenders take long to be awarded and our projects take longer than planned to be completed; tender awarding decisions get questioned through appeals; when we delay to assist our clients; we open ourselves to suspicions of corruption, as the presence of these acts hint its presence,” Moreti said when opening the sub council meeting this week.
Fighting corruption is one of the pillars of Moreti’s road map, launched this week. He indicated that its mandate is zero corruption in all council process such as recruitment and procurement processes.
He noted that the sub council intend to achieve this through sensitization of council leadership during Council sub council meetings, sensitizing of staff members during staff meetings and morning briefs, ensuring regular training of Village Development Committees on corruption related issues as well as popularisation of the corruption policy among other things.
“Combating corruption will take a concerted effort involving multiple stakeholders like the civil society working alongside the law enforcers. We are a very small establishment to be blemished by corruption. I therefore want you to join me in denouncing the birth and growth of corruption in our institution,” Moreti appealed in his address.
The sub-council Chairman has since cautioned public officers to be extra cautious to avoid corrupt practices indicating that corruption comes in different aspects and one can commit the offence without even realising that. He warned that they remain firm in their intolerance for corruption as the practice is an evil that has graduated from being a domestic to a global problem and as community leaders they should be seen to be condemning it.
Corruption is said to be rooted that some officials in the sub council are said to have been suspended from duty following issues of financial mismanagement where an amount estimated at P6 million has not been accounted for. Moreti could however not confirm nor deny the reports.
In an interview with this publication, Moreti who was cagey with details on the number of cases could only confirm that they currently have a number of corruption cases before the courts.
“What I know is that there is a certain department where officers have been suspended due to issues that involve money, I cannot say which department or how many officers have been suspended as the issue is currently under investigation,” Moreti said.
He could also not disclose more information about the suspended officers but only confirmed that a number of them have been suspended in relation to corruption especially with regards to the procurement aspect. He revealed that the issues of procurement and tender allocations are among were corruption is mostly recorded.
