Times Of Swaziland: Over E400m spent illegally

Over E400m spent illegally
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 SABELO MASIMULA on 18/03/2013 00:00:00


MBABANE – A shocking E400 million of the country’s E11 billion budget of
2011-2012 allocated to ministries was spent illegally.
This money was used without the necessary authori-sation or without going
through the established budgetary controls.
This is the summary total of amounts cited in the Auditor General’s (AG)
Report for the Financial Year ended March 31, 2012 which will form part of the
Public Accounts Committee deliberations this year.
These amounts include E31 million which was either mismanaged, embezzled,
unau-thorised, or cannot be accounted for by ministries with controlling
officers failing to give satisfactory responses.
Central Transport Administration (CTA) vehicle charges overspent by about E133
million to which the AG says in her report; "these practices continue to ignore
established budgetary controls."
Exceeding
Disregard of expenditure controls contributed to public debt exceeding the
budgeted E400 million by over E254 million.
It must be pointed out however, that while others were spending willy-nilly,
about 16 projects could not get off the ground with several ministries also
recording under-expenditures that made government books record what goes down as
‘savings’ of nearly E167 million in capital expenditure and E139 million in
recurrent expenditure.
The Auditor General, Phestecia Nxumalo, observed that in her previous audit
report, "I reported that ministries and departments including Treasury do not
reconcile their accounting records, at least monthly. This trend continues to
affect the quality of information reported to Parliament and the public."
The Auditor General said, "It is somehow disappointing to note that the
unsatisfactory state of affairs continue in light of reluctance by controlling
officers to carry out vigilant supervision and conduct surprise checks in
compliance with the Financial and Accounting Instructions."
She further said that revenue collections continued to be siphoned at the point
of collection by those responsible.
"What is disturbing is that the perpetrators are enjoying full salary and still
at work," said Nxumalo in the report.
Aggrieved
She further stated that some suppliers admitted to have overcharged the goods
supplied to government and promised in writing to refund government while others
made good the shortages of supplies which were not delivered but paid in full by
government.
"I’m really aggrieved to pronounce that the scenario depicted above means the
recovery of this economy might be far-fetched," said Nxumalo in the report.
For instance, under the police portfolio, the Auditor General discovered that an
amount of E78 453.59 was not accounted for at Sidvokodvo Police Station.
There was shortage of revenue amounting to E13 855 from traffic offences
fines-there was neither no money in cash nor document for this amount.
Also from exhibits data E16 904.30 was discovered missing. This was from exhibit
numbers 73/2008 and 74/2008 for case number 394/08.
The police also incurred from unauthorised over expenditure beyond budget
provision by the ministry of police on CTA vehicle usage of E22 681 331.12.
Unauthorised
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation un-authorised over
expenditure of E4 689 575.30.
This was money spent on CTA vehicles usage. The ministry further spent E30
403.32 on exceeding usage of cellphones. It further made an unaccounted payment
for uniforms to JS&M Investments of E6 444.
The Defence Ministry had unau-thorised over expenditure beyond its approved
budget provision incurred E52 010 948.82 on CTA vehicles usage.
In one of the cases queried by the Auditor General, she wrote in the report that
she was given the response that: "The over expenditure amounting to E42 million
was caused by the high cost of maintenance of the ministry’s old vehicles. The
high demand of fuel for the ever increasing border control patrols and the eight
hired vehicles which draw rentals of E1 000 per vehicle each day".
The Ministry of Tinkhundla had unauthorised over expenditure incurred E929
516.55.
This amount was in respect of building material delivered at Ka-Schiele High
School which E183 743.47 was approved but E1 113 060.02 of the actual payment
was made.
Defrauded
The ministry was further defrauded E53 409.60 for building material at Sandla
Preschool and E120 455.64 for John Wesley Primary School. The Auditor
Gene-ral’s report also highlights that the ministry paid E322 570 for
parastatals occupying govern-ment’s offices.
It was further forced to pay in utility bills for the parastatals an amount of
E2 250 097.66.
Other sums paid by the ministry are E113 289. 29 for a salary paid to an
employee beyond its retirement date.
It also paid E39 985. 08 for material of an abandoned project, E25 592.25 for
missing material, E8 500 for undelivered cement blocks, E84 731.38 for unused
material, E93 846.03 for salary overpayment to an absent employee. The employee
was reportedly missing from work for months.
The ministry also paid E29 275 for undelivered building material at Ngwempisi.
In total the above mentioned abnormalities amount to E83, 746, 344. 33.
The list is endless.
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COMMENTS:
- The list is endless, what a shame, hope the newly appointed Anti corruption
commissioner is following such cases of mismanagement of public funds with a
keen interest. Mr Thanda we remember fondly your work during the time of the
Scorpions in SA (Ofezela), loosely translated Bofecela in Siswati and we hope
that you are still the right man for job. It's a pity that the Auditor General
can only note these corruption cases and effectively do nothing about them, why
can't she be made the Public Protector like Thuli Madonsela in neighbouring SA.
As for the police it's disturbing that they are also cited in the AG's report,
who becomes the custodian of the law uma noba baganga?
March 18, 2013, 8:41 am, Five Skippers