MBOMBELA – The province is getting worse at balancing its books.
In fact, its irregular expenditure doubled from R1 billion in 2013/14, to R2,3 billion in the past financial year.
The Auditor General (AG) released its audited opinions on 17 provincial departments and related parastatals for the year ending 2014/15 last week.
Irregular expenditure is payments made which are not approved as per delegated authority in a department.
Of this the Department of Health contributed R1,692 billion.
In 2013/14 the AG’s most common findings were that procurement processes were not competitive and were unfair, and that suppliers were being used in which employees or close family members had financial interests.
- Read more on the AG’s report from the previous financial year: ‘Kimi Makwetu finds irregular spending by provincial government departments quadrupled since 2012/13‘
This year it found supply chain management (SCM) regressed in its compliance with legislation, with 76 per cent of auditees not complying with key legislation.
There was little improvement in preventing unauthorised, irregular, wasteful or fruitless expenditure.
Fruitless and wasteful expenditure amounted to R5,4 million, down from R7,4 million last year. The highest contributors were health with R1,7 million and education with R3,6 million.
As many as 35 per cent of those audited had positions for chief financial officers not filled for more than six months.
The recommendations were that the top three causes for Mpumalanga’s non-performance were instability in key positions, weakening internal controls, and
Mr Collen Sedibe, provincial leader of the EFF, says this was indicative that the entire provincial government needed to be put under administration.
“The AG found it was due to supply chain management and pointed to politicians as the reason. It shows that we basically don’t have a government here.”
The DA’s provincial leader Mr James Masango says the AG found that even the Office of the Premier wasn’t following tender regulations. “The province needs premier Mabuza to make a speedy return (from his extended sick leave), so as to account fully for the matters raised above and give further clarity on why his office only achieved 82 per cent of its targets, yet spent 97,6 per cent of its R216,8 million budget.”
