Education Department’s Scopa answers deemed ‘poorest’ of all
Fruitless and wasteful expenditure amounted to R13,29 million and the expenditure disclosed by the department did not reflect the full extent of the fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
POLOKWANE – The Department of Education on Friday heard from the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) Chairperson, Snowy Kennedy-Monyemoratho, their responses on questions posed were the poorest of all departments.
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Various annexures to documentation did not address answers to questions posed and the department was requested to provide proper responses and the correct annexures.
They were duly requested to rework their answers on at least four questions posed by the committee.
Scopa also warned them no regression would be tolerated in their audit outcomes, which improved to a qualified audit outcome for their 2016/17 audit by the Auditor-General (AG) after five consecutive years of receiving disclaimer audit outcomes.
Deadlines were provided to the department to finalise certain processes.
Scopa promised to arrange a meeting with the Office of the Premier to determine where and who is to account for audits and outstanding issues related to the time when the Section 100 intervention was in place, and also to establish who is to account during the Section 18 intervention. Some issues, that cannot be cleared, have remained on their books since the intervention and would prevent the department from getting a clean audit.
The department made payments in contravention of supply chain management requirements, resulting in irregular expenditure of R891,6 million of which R541,4 million was in 2016.Effective steps were not taken by the department as required by legislation and regulations to prevent the irregular expenditure and all allegations of financial misconduct committed by officials were not investigated.
Investigations into matters regarding allegations of financial misconduct as far back as 2012/13 were not conducted yet as required by treasury regulations.
Another problem is implementing agents of the department that did not follow supply chain prescripts as per the Public Finance Management Act. This was described by Scopa as not acceptable, as it is public money they are working with.
Pre-payment to implementing agents are illegal and should stop forthwith.
Scopa warned the department an oversight visit would be conducted in the near future to inspect the department’s recordkeeping system.
Scopa members in the closing remarks said the HOD’s intentions are good, but she doesn’t let people feel the consequences for their deeds, and this would lead to issues not being cleared.
The pace of dealing with investigation is also too slow, and she was instructed to see to it that some people be charged and leave the system, or the MEC’s name would “go down”.
“You can get a clean audit,” the department was told.
