Ensure The Security of the Use of Resources – Arzeki

The vice-president in charge of Economic Governance and Management of Knowledge of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Rabah Arzeki has urged African countries to ensure the security of the use of their resources.

He stated that the AfDB expects African countries to prepare for a robust recovery from the impact of the pandemic, “but this will primarily involve mitigating risks and putting in place policies to strengthen transparency”.

“It is a good thing to respond quickly to the health crisis, but we should just as well ensure the security of the use of resources. We are, for example, in favor of eliminating the multiplicity of single treasury accounts in addition to external budget controls”.

He made this remark on Tuesday, December 15, 2020, at a webinar organized by the AfDB with some key partners on the continent on ways to promote accountability and transparency in its regional member countries (RMCs) in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The webinar was organized by the Office for the Coordination of Governance and Public Financial Management (ECGF) and the Fiduciary and Inspection Services Department (SNFI), two departments of the AfDB involved in governance, transparency, and accountability issues.

To strengthen the partnership between the AfDB and the main stakeholders of the accountability mechanisms, parliamentarians, and members of audit institutions, procurement control bodies, and civil society discussed the mechanisms of accountability and monitoring of the use of funds made available to RMCs by the Bank in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Two panels provided an opportunity to discuss the challenges and impact of the current pandemic for audit and control institutions. 

Participants noted that urgent actions put in place by governments should be framed by measures related to accountability, transparency, and integrity, especially in procurement and resource management. 

In some cases, to allow a rapid response to the pandemic, basic public financial control systems have been discarded, suspended, or bypassed. This may have led to increased risks of waste, mismanagement, and corruption at a time when government resources were under significant pressure.

Recalling the Bank’s massive support for RMC response plans to the pandemic, Abdoulaye Coulibaly, Director of the AfDB’s Governance and Public Finance Office, indicated that the institution had solid instruments to ensure accountability and control of the efficient use of resources made available to States.

 “We are in a time of crisis and there are many countries that have used exceptional procedures to incur significant expenses. It was therefore important for the Bank to ensure that the implementation of the entire budget goes very well and that all the response plans to Covid-19, for which the resources have been allocated by the partners are implemented in a very effective way”.

“We have to make arrangements for auditing, accountability, reporting and this framework exists to ensure that resources are used very adequately. We are also trying to strengthen the internal and external control institutions, we are providing them with resources to strengthen their capacities to enable them to fully play their role”, Coulibaly said.

According to Barbra Rwodzi, Zimbabwean parliamentarian and member of the Public Accounts Committee (AFROPAC), “the best thing to do is to strengthen government audit bodies to continue to monitor the work done by the various government departments. Parliamentarians must also build their capacity to produce quality reports and be able to defend them before the executive”.

The participants noted the need to strengthen the place and role of supreme audit institutions, parliaments, and civil society in the context of interaction with citizens to maintain their independence, better access to audited entities, technological infrastructure that would allow them to perform remote audits using metadata. 

The participants added that these audit institutions must also meet the expectations of the main national and international stakeholders on the quality and speed of audits.

To meet these challenges, Supreme Audit Institutions must adapt and reform to continue to ensure transparency and accountability. Civil society organizations recalled the need for support from multilateral development institutions, such as the Bank, to enable them to remain independent from governments.