HEADS MUST ROLL

I reference my thought on the article published on June 18, 2024, regarding payments of monies supposedly destined for the University of Eswatini into a ministry’s employee personal account. I pen my thoughts flabbergasted on how this is allowed to happen. It brings to mind questions regarding internal controls within government ministries and the subvented entities.
One cannot help but ponder, if this is an isolated incident within government departments or if this is a common occurrence across all departments. I speculate that if one official was able to do this and get away with it, then probably someone else, also gets away with similar fraud, just the nation has not caught wind of the news. I will argue that this shows leakages within the governments finance management requiring stringent financial tests and controls. Also, I will argue that this has to be a syndicated approach requiring some collusion with officers in the university.

Controls

This occurrence shines light on weak controls within government entities and also speaks to issues of poor revenue assurance on the side of the university. Financial prudence requires that not one person should be responsible for the procurement, purchase and payment of an invoice to reduce the risk of internal fraud. Ideally, the person making a payment should only just receive a payment requisition with all invoices and accounts to be paid having been verified by independent officers. Given my limited knowledge of the government payment system, these controls ought to be in place. It would, therefore, be impossible for an individual acting alone to pull such a heist and get away with it. The segregation of power within the financial machinery ought to have detected this anomaly before payment. Furthermore, changing an account within the payment system requires multiple authorisations and confirmation with the vendor. Ideally, a request ought to have been submitted in writing by the university requesting the change of account. It is against this web of bewildered thoughts that this seems to be a syndicate and not just one person acting alone.

Someone at the university must have confirmed these account details. It is on this thinking that I call on the office of the auditor general (AG) to institute a further inquiry into this matter, there seems to be a lot that has not yet been revealed. I can stake my bottom dollar, that there is no one that one person can execute this fraud without co-conspirators. If the investigation reveals that one person was able to pull it off single-handedly, then the AG’s office will have to recommend improved internal controls within the ministry.

Revenue assurance

The second component that one would also have to consider in this case is revenue assurance on the side of the university. This is based completely on the assumption that one person within the ministry was able to divert so much money into their personal account. The question that begs an answer is where was the revenue assurance team at the university. Someone is tasked with following up on invoices and making sure that payments have been received accordingly. One wonders what if anything was done from the side of the university to follow up on the monies and invoices. If the invoices remain unpaid, someone within the finance department in the university must have made follow ups and at some point, proofs of payment by the ministry would have been produced and these would have shown a long time ago that monies had been diverted into personal account.

This would have been visible post a follow-up on the non-payment of the first invoice. Furthermore, for a letter or request to divert funds a letter must have been drafted by an official (senior finance official) within the university of Eswatini alerting the ministry of the account changes. To this end, I call for the University Council to institute a forensic inquiry into the revenue and expense accounts of the university. The newly-appointed task team to investigate the financial situation of the university must also dig into these anomalies. This is not to speculate or cast aspersions into the capabilities of officers within the university and within the ministry. However, common sense, logic on financial prudence dictates that this ought to be a syndicated incidence. One should not shy away from the possibility that we live in the age of photoshop and deep fakes produced by artificial intelligence, hence the call for a full blow investigation to exonerate the control systems within both entities.

Impunity

We have as a nation allowed corruption with impunity for a long time. This has to come to an end, we have allowed corruption to bring our health system to a halt, now the institution of high education is grinding to a halt because corrupt individuals seek to line their pockets at the expense of emaSwati, who desperately need to access higher education. To this end I call on the Head of Government, to heed the call to eradicate corruption as mandated in the speech from the throne. Heads must roll!

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