Football administrator Alex Mambwe has asked FAZ president Bwalya to resign on moral grounds.
Bwalya allegedly received US$80,000 from former FIFA vice-president Mohammad Bin Hammam which he claims was a debt meant to help run the affairs of the Football Association of Zambia, but has refused to state whether the money was remitted to Football House.
Auditor General Anna Chifungula yesterday said her office had taken interest in the revelations by the UK’s Sunday Times that published Bwalya’s emails to Bin Hammam, asking for money for the running of FAZ and his personal expenditure in 2009 and 2011.
She said FAZ was normally audited in three to four years, but in the wake of the corruption allegations, her office would be forced to audit them as soon as possible.
“We may squeeze them (in the audit programme) in view of what we have heard because we would want to look closely at what has happened. We could audit them sometime this year or first thing 2015. Our forensic audit director is working on that because he was asking me on that (FAZ). We have taken interest and that will force us to audit them as quickly as possible because with what is happening they become priority,” Chifungula said.
Asked whether FAZ was audited in the last audit exercise, Chifungula said no.
“They were not audited in the last audit but there was a report on FAZ sometime back, because any institution that receives funds from government is audited. Since it (FAZ) is regarded as a small institution, it takes about three to four years for them to be audited,” said Chifungula.
And Mambwe said Bwalya had broken the ethics of good corporate governance by using the name of the association to obtain money for personal use.
Mambwe said Bwalya needed to resign to protect his reputation as Zambia’s most successful footballer.
“Let him (Bwalya) on moral grounds resign. Because of the name that he made, let him resign. He has to leave some integrity to his name,” Mambwe said.
“If he continues clinging on, these things will continue coming up and it will just mess him. We love him, we still remember the goals he used to score, but we don’t want him to continue being found in scandals.”
Mambwe asked the Auditor General’s office to quickly intervene to save Football House.
“In all this, there is a million dollar question that cannot be defended. The moment the association’s money goes into your account, it becomes an audit query. The Auditor General should even find out. I am asking the Auditor General to intervene because that is the government wing that receives money from government,” Mambwe said.
He said the FAZ audited financial reports had a lot or irregularities that needed to be queried by the Auditor General.
“In the past four years, the audits have been saying ‘limitation in scope’, they cannot provide information on government funding. Limitation in scope simply means failure to provide information to the auditors. Why should the auditing company allow failure to provide information consecutively? What I saw was very simple. There is what we call familiarity threat. Familiarity threat means people are actually familiar with the auditors who they can even talk to, to manufacture the books of accounts. I proposed in the AGM that we change the auditors, but the people got offended and they threw me out, thinking I was bringing anarchy,” Mambwe said.
He also challenged current FAZ executive members to speak out on the money.
“I have read financial reports from FAZ. When I checked the income, I can’t see any income that came from outsiders. Even those old reports that I have, there is nothing like an income coming from Bin Hammam. There is no expenditure to show that they spent that money on FAZ. I challenge the current executive members to come out,” said Mambwe.
The Sunday Times recently alleged that Bwalya was one of 30 African football association presidents said to have been bribed by Bin Hammam for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid.
The Sunday Times alleges that Bwalya received a total of US$80,000 between 2009 and 2011 from Bin Hammam to help solicit a vote for the 2022 World Cup bid, allegations the FAZ president denies despite consenting to receiving US$50,000, which he claims was a debt.
FIFA is investigating the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups and is set to complete the phase of investigations by tomorrow, and submit a report to the Adjudicatory Chamber approximately six weeks thereafter. The report will consider all evidence potentially related to the bidding process, including evidence collected from prior investigations.
By Prudence Phiri