E19M GOVERNMENT FUEL EVAPORATES

MBABANE – Back to square one! The Central Transport Administration (CTA) of yesterday, infamous for embezzlement of funds, has bounced back to the limelight –pathetically for the wrong reasons.

This is despite the fact that its trading account has been clean in the past four years.
It is a different story altogether in the current financial year ending March 31, 2019.
Employees have a new ‘word’ to justify fuel losses. Fuel evaporates from the tanks, they say.

Evaporation is the process of turning from liquid into vapour (a substance diffused or suspended in the air, especially one normally or sold).
Auditor General (AG) Timothy Sipho Matsebula’s report contained nothing good but bad for emaSwati, particularly the taxpayer.
In his audit report for the current financial year ending on March 31, 2019, Matsebula, who is also a pastor by vocation, stated that he was informed during his routine query that fuel evaporated from bowsers at the government garage.

A bowser is a tank for fuelling aircraft and other vehicles or supplying water.
An expert in bowser maintenance said ‘evaporation’ meant the fuel turned into gas – something which could cause explosion, but wondered why the fuel tanks were not cleaned.

“It’s unlikely that over a million of litres can evaporate. The justification falls away,” said the expert who works closely with public enterprises.
Meanwhile, Auditor General Matsebula said he was concerned that 1 756 303. 40 litres valued at E19 530 257.28 was not accounted for by CTA.
He said he got this when he enquired why there was no evidence that petrol and diesel was sold to government ministries and departments.

He said the bowser register report extracted from the government systems and administered by CTA showed that returns were not submitted and captured in the data to update quantities consumed and unused in each of the fuel containers.
The auditor general said CTA claimed fuel was kept in ‘inactive’ bowsers, which, in turn, caused the evaporation.  

In his own words, the AG said: “During discussions, I was informed that fuel is lost through evaporation. This explanation means that keeping fuel in inactive bowsers may lead to losses. However, the ministry allowed this fuel to be lost, not only through possible theft but also through evaporation, as some bowsers had unconsumed fuel which was not transferred to active stations.”  

He said unaccounted for fuel exceeded the capacity of each bowser. He said he further noted that these bowsers had not been active for a number of years.
At the time of compiling this report, there were no corrective actions taken by the controlling officer to rectify these anomalies, decried Matsebula.

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