Scopa acknowledges Dept of Transport’s consequence management
Thirteen officials of the department have been dismissed following disciplinary hearings and their pension pay-outs have also been frozen pending the outcome of further investigations by the Hawks.
POLOKWANE – Department of Transport HOD, Hanli du Plessis, was congratulated by the Standing Committee of Public Accounts (Scopa) last Friday for being an example to other departments in taking the lead in consequence management.
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A new problem relating to the issuing of double invoices is being investigated within the department, where two officials have already resigned, but cases against them have been opened and the Hawks are hot on their trails.
Du Plessis told Scopa last Friday, that the department had no mechanism of validating information captured which affects the integrity and accuracy of the information.
The recording of departmental payments received and issued notices are done manually on an Excel system, which leads to human error while recording the issued notices’ details.
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The department received findings from the Auditor-General (AG) about misstatements on traffic summonses not on the accrued departmental revenue list and differences between the accrued departmental revenue traffic summonses list and the actual traffic summonses issued. Du Plessis said one of the municipalities did not capture and submit around 2 000 summonses and the department had no way of knowing about this. She said due to financial constraints the department is unable to acquire a custom-made contravention management system particularly for the section 56 contravention notices.
The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) has been approached to remedy the matter. They are in the process to develop a system which will be able to interface with the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act, which is to be implemented in the near future, and all traffic systems will be linked on one system.
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Du Plessis said it would, however, not prevent human errors when data is entered into the system.
The department was further congratulated on the exemplary and comprehensive way in which they answered to questions related to their financial statements and questions emanating from the AG’s audit report. Scopa was satisfied with their answers the first time. The department, however, had to clear six resolutions.
Du Plessis, on being asked about the possibility of a clean audit next year, said there was one issue, pertaining to assets and the handing over of sidewalks and access roads to the Department of Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure, of which the finalisation thereof was unknown to her.
Newly appointed MEC for Transport, Makoma Makhurupetje, said she realised she took over a stable department which has been doing things in the correct manner. She thanked her predecessor, the AG and Scopa and said the department will do better.
