AG’S REPORT: OVER E30M FOR COVID-19 UNACCOUNTED FOR AT NDMA

LOBAMBA – The National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) is alleged to have not accounted for the use of over E30 million that was designated for the COVID-19 response project.

Although it was not mentioned during the PAC sitting, it is common knowledge that this was at the time when the NDMA was under the leadership of the incumbent Prime Minister, Russell Dlamini, as Chief Executive Officer, in the 2020/2021 financial year. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) cast doubt on the ‘clean audits’ of the government’s disaster response agency, during the fifth day of the PAC, when the Deputy Prime Minister’s (DPM) Office responded to audit queries. The DPM’s Office is the parent ministry of the NDMA. The scrutiny of the NDMA queries took over two hours of the PAC as the parliamentary watchdog went through the recommendations of the auditor general’s (AG) compliance audit report on government accounts for the financial year ended March 31, 2021.

Uncounted

The AG had reported that the financial reports of management revealed that there was an uncounted for expenditure amounting to E30 936 887.72 for the COVID-19 response project, in the financial year ended March 31, 2021. The AG noted that a detailed statement of comprehensive income reported a total expenditure of E349 955 313, whereas the records and management performance report submitted to his office, through a letter dated March 29, 2022, presented an expenditure amount of E319 936 887.72 for the COVID-19 project. The unaccounted for funds were designated for the COVID-19 response project. In the response that was given during the 2022 PAC session, where the 2021 financial audits were under scrutiny, the DPM’s Office Principal Secretary/controlling officer, Ambassador Melusi Masuku, told the then PAC that the NDMA made an error and did not include a donation in kind worth E30 million in the financial audits.

Breakdown

A recommendation was made to the NDMA to provide a breakdown of the utilisation of the E30 936 887.72 to the AG’s office, with all related supporting documents. Two years later, the matter has not been concluded as the AG’s Office said it was still awaiting the breakdown of the expenditure and related documents, which were not in the annexed documents of the thick report that was brought before the PAC. The AG also noted a further E11 million, still under COVID-19 response, in another responsibility area. Though documents for the expenditure were submitted, they were still to be reviewed by the AG’s Office.

PS Masuku, in his response to the PAC, said the matter was resolved as the documents had been submitted to the AG’s Office. However, the Assistant Auditor General, Samkele Motsa, said he was unaware of any documents that the controlling officer was referring to. This was after he was asked by the Chairperson of the PAC, Deputy Speaker, who also Mhlangatane Member of Parliament (MP), Madala Mhlanga, if the matter had been resolved as per the submission of the PS. Motsa said: “The records we had in the ledger showed E319 936 887.72, while the trial balance showed E349 955 313,” he said. The tension in the House mounted when the PS asked the NDMA Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Thoko Dlamini, to respond on the status of the matter, since the report was compiled based on responses that were provided by NDMA.

Meeting

The CFO said they convened a meeting with the AG’s Office, where the breakdown was reflected in March this year, as well as last Friday. She also told the PAC that minutes of the meetings where the responses to the PAC were discussed were annexed to the documents they submitted. However, the assistant AG told the PAC that information he had in his office was that the E30 million funds were still uncounted for, as nothing had been concluded on the matter. He said he was surprised to hear Masuku telling the PAC that the matter had been resolved, yet it was still pending. Some of the MPs, who included Dvokodvweni MP Sifiso Shabalala, suggested that the PS should take an oath, because his responses were suspicious.
The disagreements between the AG’s office and NDMA were glaring as both parties maintained their position on the status of the financial records.

The MPs further posed a question to the PS, asking him why he was lying before the PAC. The MPs stated that they were not going to sit there and waste taxpayers’ money listening to contradicting statement. They said if the matter was resolved, the AG would have easily agreed, ‘but seemingly someone somewhere was not telling the truth’. What fuelled the tension even more was an explanation made by Motsa, saying it was not possible for the accounting books to have different balances. He said the general ledger in fact should rather have a higher balance, because its entries are made per transaction, yet a trial balance is a consolidation. He said it was questionable that the trial balance was over by E30 million.

After Motsa’s explanation, Kubuta MP Masiphula Mamba noted that the matter dated back to 2021, and asked what had dragged it to 2024, because it should have been resolved a long time ago.  “This is a matter of public interest. The public wants to know what happened to the findings of the 2021 AG’s report. Are you not cooking the books of accounts, given the explanation by the AG? Why is the general ledger different from the trial balance?” he asked. The Deputy Chairperson of the PAC, who is also Nhlambeni MP, Manzi Zwane, questioned the whereabouts of the over E30 million expenditure breakdown.

He said all they wanted to determine was what the E30 million was used for. The CFO maintained that the government auditors in their various engagements went through their system, which reflected that the E30 million was just an error of management letter, but the actual figure was indeed the E349 million that was shown by the audited statement. The assistant AG told the PAC that the facts were misrepresented in the report by the PS, as there was no consensus that was reached. “We still retain that the general ledger and trial balance are not balancing,” he said.

The chairperson asked why the officers were telling different stories while there was enough time to prepare responses and finalise the matter ahead of their appearance before the PAC.
“Why did you not resolve these matters before you came here, I am lost, you should be speaking the same language,” Mhlanga said.

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