RESIGNED ACCOUNTANT LEAVES ETA CEO IN E80 000 MESS

LOBAMBA – A former accountant at the Eswatini Tourism Authority (ETA) has left the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Linda Nxumalo, on the cross, dying for his sins.

The accountant resigned while facing a charge of mismanagement of funds at the entity as explained by Nxumalo during the appearance of the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday. The mismanaged funds were estimated by Nxumalo to be around E80 000. The committee instructed Nxumalo to pay back the money for the reason that she failed to hold the employee to account and recover the mismanaged funds even before he resigned or ensure that the accountant was put to account and the money was recovered.

Reconciliations

The issue of the accountant came to the fore when the entity was responding to a query where the Auditor General (AG), Timothy Matsebula, reported that there were no petty cash reconciliations prepared in the financial years ended March 31, 2016 to 2021, yet petty cash amounting to E357 347 was being spent and cashed out by employees. The petty cash was not accounted-for, and the expenditure purposes and the delivery of services and goods remained uncertain.  It was further noted that, at year-end the petty cash account had negative balances from the years ended  March 31, 2016 to  March 31, 2021, which means that certain petty cash payments cashed were not allocated to the petty cash account. “I am concerned that there is a risk of lack of proper audit trail on reconciliation of petty cash amounts, which is a process that should be done prior to issuing another petty cash cheque to be cashed out. Some of the petty cash expenditure might have been omitted and not disclosed, and petty cash was understated as it is not possible that the entity can owe these amounts if petty cash spending is based on cash basis,” submitted the AG in his report.

Matsebula added that the management was advised to make sure that petty cash reconciliations were prepared timeously and reviewed by senior personnel prior to issuing the next petty cash cheque. The management was further advised to work on reconciling the petty cash account in the coming year. Apart from the petty cash anomaly, Nxumalo revealed that the accountant, who was the overseer of the entity’s accounts at the time, was charged for the E80 000 mismanaged funds and he attended a disciplinary hearing. Subsequent to the hearing, the accountant then tendered a resignation letter. Members of the PAC, including Manzini Region Member of Parliament (MP) Busisiwe Mavimbela, Mangcongco MP Oneboy Zikalala, Nhlambeni MP Manzi Zwane and Gege MP Musa Kunene all wondered why the CEO gave the green light to the resignation letter knowing well that the accountant was running away from his crimes.

In her defence, Nxumalo said the accountant resigned on an immediate effect basis, but the matter was then reported to the police as well as the Anti-Corrupt Commission (ACC).  The committee was not convinced that Nxumalo had done justice to put the accountant to account as they even questioned why the money was not deduced from his pension as it was revealed that he was employed on a permanent basis. Nxumalo was tasked with ensuring that the money was recovered from the accountant or she faced paying it from her pocket.

Checked

On the issue of the petty cash, the management of the entity stated that they would ensure that there was proper documentation and filing to enable complete record-keeping. Management further stated that they would also ensure that the petty cash reconciliation was checked and signed by a senior level personnel. According to the ministry’s responses forwarded to the AG, the controlling officer also stated that the non-reconciliation of petty cash was one of the irregularities identified in the Finance Department. Although petty cash was being reconciled manually, it was not correctly captured on accounting software. This resulted in a situation, where there was loss of audit trail and failure to properly allocate petty cash expenditures, hence the balances sitting on the balance sheet as unallocated petty cash amounts. To resolve this issue, ETA has assigned an officer to manage and reconcile petty cash thereof.

Furthermore, ETA has stipulated a monthly petty cash figure of E2 500 and the reconciliations are done and accordingly filed together with the supporting documents as revealed in the entity’s responses forwarded to the AG. The controlling officer further stated that, worth noting was that the petty cash control account had been cumulative over the years and as such, the amount in question is the E82 907 as opposed to the E357 347. To address this, ETA is working on a revised petty cash procedure document with clear approval stages.

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