The Department of Education is the worst performing department in the country as revealed when South African Auditor-General (AG), Kimi Makwetu upon the release of his report on departments’ financial statements on 25 November last year.
A member of the Legislature’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) last Friday said the department’s whole senior management should be expelled or forced to resign.
The department, described to be “in shambles” had to account to Scopa on its audited Annual Financial Statements for 2013/14 and 2014/15 and the committee said it was as if nothing has been done and nobody is held accountable for consequences.
“The department is a big stumbling block for the province. It is filled with bureaucrats doing nothing,” a member of the committee chaired by Snowy Kennedy-Monyemoratho said.
The questions by Scopa and the AG about financial statements submitted by the department to the AG were about the same as those that had been asked since 2011. “The same persons are answering the same questions and no consequence management exists,” according to Scopa. The questions asked were mostly about who were responsible for certain irregular, unauthorised and fruitless and wasteful and expenditure.
Department Head Beauty Mutheiwana said it was actually the Administration team of the Section 100 administration that should have been summoned to appear before Scopa. She said they ruled during that period and she received an empty file from them. The current Section 18 management is busy rectifying records management, but many answers cannot be given to the AG as there are no documents to verify or work from, however hard the department is struggling to get hold of documents, even from implementing agents.
“There was no proper handover from the administrator to the department,” she told Scopa. She ascribed record management as the centre of the problems and said the proposed turnaround needed finances to buy the necessary instruments. Mutheiwana said their first priority was to get the department stabilised and get services delivered. She said the process to find out who delivered what and who approved what transactions is a slow one. “The rebuilding of all records and finding documents is progressing at a slow pace.”
Scopa said it needed names of officials to be held accountable as the committee did not get a sense that there was an attempt to bring officials to account. The two years’ statements under review regarding irregular expenditure amounted to R2,2 billion. Irregular expenditure for the financial year ending in March 2014 amounted to R695 million. Of the department’s total of R994 million irregular expenditure in the financial year ending March 2015, 99,5% was in respect of the procurement of the National School Nutrition Programme service providers and supply chain processes not followed. The AG was not able to determine the misstatement of the opening balance of irregular expenditure disclosed at R2 209 894 000. The department’s answer to a question about irregular expenditure was that the Section 100(1) (b) intervention team handled all investigations pertaining to irregular expenditure and officials will be identified once the investigation has been completed.
Unauthorised spending was mostly because of Cost of Employees expenditure and salaries of Further Education and Training colleges’ staff funded through a conditional grant. Fruitless and wasteful expenditure was mostly due to interest charged on late payments of Telkom and Eskom invoices.
The department was told Scopa needed reasons for the irregular expenditure and a breakdown of who was responsible.
“It is in everybody’s interest that the department be turned around as it receives more than 60% of the province’s budget,” the department was told and asked to give further reports requested to Scopa on or before 15 October.
Story and photo: NELIE ERASMUS
>>nelie.observer@gmail.com
Featured photo: Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) Chairperson Snowy Kennedy-Moneymoratho.
