Mohloai Mpesi
THE Ministry of Finance and Development Planning is still battling to eliminate duplicate payments within the government’s financial system, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has heard.
The admission came as ministry officials appeared before the PAC on Thursday to answer questions arising from the Auditor-General’s reports for the financial years ended March 2023 and March 2024.
The hearings form part of a wider investigation into public finance management that has, in recent weeks, exposed a series of irregularities in the processing and recording of the government funds.
Barely a fortnight ago, the ministry and the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL) came under intense scrutiny after the PAC heard that M524 million in government debt payments had been processed outside the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), the government’s official accounting platform. Lawmakers warned that bypassing IFMIS has repeatedly contributed to the adverse audit opinions issued against government accounts in recent years.
The ministry was also questioned over a M119 million discrepancy in the government’s Treasury Bills balance after Auditor-General ‘Mathabo Makenete reported an unexplained decline in the domestic debt figure from M867 million to M747 million in her report for the year ended March 2024.
Officials from the Debt Department admitted they could not produce documentary evidence to explain the discrepancy, saying they relied on information supplied by the CBL.
Against that backdrop, PAC chairperson, ‘Machabana Lemphane-Letsie sought assurances on Thursday that the long-running problem of duplicate payments had finally been resolved.
“We are dealing with the audit report of 2023 and 2024. We want to know whether the duplicates have ended or whether they still happen,” Ms Lemphane-Letsie said.
Acting Deputy Accountant-General for Expenditure, Retšepile Mosenene, conceded that duplicate payments were still occurring, blaming implementation challenges following the introduction of the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) system used by both the ministry and the CBL.
She said about five duplicate payments were recorded during the 2025/26 financial year.
“Duplicates continue to happen. With the introduction of EFT, because of not understanding the new system, both the ministry and the CBL made some duplicate payments. We tried to solve them,” Ms Mosenene said.
She told the committee that no duplicate payments had been recorded so far in the current financial year. Of the five duplicate payments identified in 2025/26, all had been reconciled and the funds recovered, while two additional cases involving the CBL were still being resolved.
Not satisfied, Ms Lemphane-Letsie sought clarity on the source of the duplicate payments, noting that previous incidents had originated at the CBL rather than from payment instructions issued by the Accountant-General’s office.
“How did the duplicates come about? With the previous duplicates, we were told that they emanated from the CBL, not from the Accountant-General’s instructions. What about these ones?” she asked.
Ms Mosenene said two duplicate payments made during the 2025/26 financial year resulted from errors within the CBL’s payment system.
“During the year 2025/2026, the Central Bank made two payments mistakenly,” she said.
The exchanges are the latest in a series of tense PAC hearings examining financial discrepancies involving billions of maloti as part of a broader reconciliation exercise launched after auditors uncovered a M6.1 billion gap in the government accounts.
Auditor-General Makenete has attributed the discrepancies to delayed recording of transactions, unrecorded payments by diplomatic missions and local councils, exchange-rate losses, administrative errors and, in some cases, fraud.
The PAC is expected to continue questioning ministry officials over the Auditor-General’s findings when the hearings resume this week.