National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) has warned public officers against abusing public resources at the expense of people’s expected services by district councils.

Chairperson for NLGFC, Richard Chapweteka, was speaking Wednesday in Rumphi when a team of the committee members inspected Governance to Enhance Service Delivery (GESD) projects in the district.

“Issues of mis-procurement and, in certain cases, theft of public resources by district councils, have been in the public domain. Unfortunately, some of such cases have not been pursued. The responsible officers have not been held accountable for the mess,” said Chapweteka.

He said beginning 2022/23 Financial Year, nobody will go scot-free for abusing public resources adding that internal control measures will be strengthened in all the district councils through deployment of well-trained auditors whose job should be to raise red flags where they detect any form of abuse of public resources.

Procurement Officer for Rumphi District Council, Fredrick Bonyonga, said the council would be handing over some of the projects to communities in the next 10 days.

Rumphi District Council, with financial support from World Bank through NLGFC, is currently constructing a Teacher’s Development Centre (TDC) at old Salawe, two market shelters; one at Katowo and the other at Phwezi, a pharmacy at Rumphi District Hospital and a police unit at Livingstonia.