MISA-Zambia director Hebert Macha and his accountant have been implicated in a K90 million financial scandal.
According to inside sources, the financial irregularities were discovered by an accountant, Sarah Banda, after conducting an on the spot audit of the institution’s books of accounts.
Banda is an accountant who sits on the board on secondment from the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants (ZICA). Her presence on the board was prompted by an Annual General Meeting resolution following a series of financial scandals that had previously rocked the institution.
The sources revealed that when Banda questioned the accountant on the payments that were not properly tabulated due to lack of accompanying documents, the said accountant failed to give a satisfactory explanation and referred the query to Macha.
The scandal has left MISA Zambia board members in a quandary since they have also not been given satisfactory answers on the missing funds. This has prompted the board members to draft a letter to fire Macha and the accountant.
However, acting chairperson Nalumino Nalumino seems to be dragging his feet to append his signature and the board members are now suspecting that he is also involved in the sharing of the loot.
Nalumino, a radio station manager at an adventist mission service in Kabwe and former Zambia Daily Mail political reporter, has been giving a string of excuses to avoid signing a letter intended to fire Macha and the accountant.
“Instead of signing that letter, the chair is saying he was told by the Namibian office not to go ahead with the planned termination of the contract of Macha and that accountant. But you know, the chair is now behaving as if he is also involved in sharing this money and he is trying to shield these fellows at all cost by involving the head office in Namibia, Windhoek.
“The fear we have is that as we head towards the AGM, we will have to explain how this money has been misapplied and if we have no explanation from the director, we need to fire him for theft,” the source said.
The sources also said Nalumino is now planning to resign his position in order to distance himself from the missing money especially that he manages a religious radio station which is owned by the Seventh Day Adventist, Radio Maranatha in Kabwe.
MISA Zambia national office also faces another problem of paying salaries to its workers. This follows the inability to fulfill statutory obligations with NAPSA and the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA).
The source said MISA Zambia has defaulted to remit the payments which accumulated to huge amounts and has now decided to channel the allocation meant for staff salaries that come from Windhoek to pay NAPSA and ZRA. The situation has created serious financial cramps at the institution.
The issues have since dampened the enthusiasm of the institution’s donors who have since expressed their lack of confidence in the way MISA Zambia is being managed. This has now compelled a lawyer who has been seconded from Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) to initiate the process of withdrawing from the board and avoid tarnishing her image.
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