Government aid beneficiaries under investigation

Louis Paul Motaze, Minister of Economy, Planning and Regional Development, has ordered inspectors to investigate organizations that benefit from government subventions.

Acting on the orders, the department charged with the control of government investments at the ministry has dispatched ten teams of audit inspectors to the regions to carry out the checks which will last for a period of thirty days.

Within the period, each team in each region will check government establishments, municipal authorities and non-governmental organizations that have been benefitting from government investment subventions since the programme to invigorate economic activities at the grassroots was launched in 2008.

The team members will check to see whether beneficiaries possess the necessary official documents authorizing their activity. It will also audit their accounts to ensure that subventions received were used for the purpose for which they were designated. The control check will cover the period 2013 to 2014 budgetary year.

The letter assigning the mission teams stated that the exercise is in line with provisions of presidential decree of July 4, 2008 that instituted the reorganization of the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development.

It further states that there were worrying discrepancies found in the way and manner contracts are approved and the way money disbursed by the state for the execution of contracts is used in the regions.

“The management of these funds is done in a manner that violates the rules and regulations governing the use of public funds. It is this reality that has necessitated the sending into the field of the inspection team, especially considering the fact that over the past three years, government has injected over 40 billion francs CFA to decentralized collectivities to execute projects that are geared towards transforming the rural communities and improving the living conditions of the masses.”

The inspectors will look specifically at investment projects designated by the exigencies of the fund to ensure that the projects were actually launched and are either being executed or have been done to completion.

They will also want to identify and document key actors in this domain, produce an index on public investment projects executed within the period under review, compile a comprehensive list of hindrances, make appropriate recommendations to the minister so that solutions could be sought to alleviate problems encountered in the execution of investment projects.

The assignment also requires the teams to send end of exercise reports to the ministry of public contracts and the minister delegate at the presidency in charge of supreme state audit.