. Mwale

By CHARITY MOONGA –
THE Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday took Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) to task over failure to account for property worth K15m bought 20 years ago, under Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO).
SIDO is a fore runner of the ZDA.
The PAC heard that under fixed assets, the ZDA had land and other buildings valued at K15m in 10 districts in the country bought under SIDO.
The property was taken over from forerunner institutions like SIDO.
The Auditor General’audit report revealed that some property in question were not on title while for others, titles were not given to ZDA.  The report also revealed that property was in a deplorable condition.
PAC also established that some title deeds for the infrastructure in question were still in the name of the defunct SIDO, 20 years after its closure.
It was also established that some of the property had not yet been surveyed while others were still occupied by people who were not paying anything to ZDA as it had no title to the property.
But Commerce Permanent Secretary Siazongo Siakalenge told the committee that the ZDA management had since come up with a committee to investigate the ownership of the property and action would soon be taken to obtain certificates for all the property.
The committee would also conclude lease agreements within two months and demand notices issued to people that were still occupying the ZDA property and ensure rental arrears dating back from time immemorial were paid to ZDA.
He said ZDA was working out modalities for the ministry of Finance to increase funding to ZDA to enable it work on the property that was in a deplorable condition.
The PAC also learnt that some of the ZDA property had since been mortgaged by African Commercial Bank over a credit SIDO owed the bank.
The PAC also took ZDA to task for entering into an agreement in which the director general was to be paid an additional US$2, 000 to his salary that would come from cooperating partners.
The PAC, led by Chipangali MMD MP Vincent Mwale said the contract was complicated as there was no legal framework to compel the donors to pay the extra $2, 000 to the director general and if the cooperating partners were unable to pay, ZDA had to meet the extra cost.