On Thursday, 20 June 2013, the Department of Local Government and Traditional Affairs failed to appear before the Standing Committee on Provincial Public Accounts (SCOPA) over the D-Account.
This came after the Committee had called a meeting together with the Department of Finance and Auditor General to discuss a way forward over the D-Account. The D Account is an account where all mining companies deposit royalties for traditional authorities. According the Auditor General’s office, the D account has never been audited for the past 19 years.
The Committee Chairperson Hon. Hlomane Chauke said the none availability of the Acting MEC for Local Government and Traditional Affairs together with the departmental staff is making the process of accountability on the matter difficult.
“The department manages the whole process as it has documentation on each tribe’s account and without them, it will be difficult to engage with relevant stakeholders,” said Hon. Chauke.
The Head of Department of Finance, Mr Ndlela Kunene informed the meeting that the department has a responsibility of maintaining all the accounts related to tribal authorities.
“We also invest the royalties paid to each account in one pool so it can generate an interest that is distributed every three months to all the accounts according to their balance or interest earned.
“Local government department is supposed to provide us with supporting documents so we can be able to reconcile statements but this does not happen, and we continue to raise the matter with them,” said Mr Kunene.
He said the department faces challenges of acquiring annual financial statements of each tribal authority as there is lack of capacity, skills and systems to effectively account on the transactions made. SCOPA Chairperson, Hon. Hlomane Chauke said the Committee will conduct a fact finding mission with the mining companies affected.
“The Committee will call a meeting with all affected mines to find information on their social responsibilities within these communities and how much they paid in terms of royalties.
We will also engage with the Department of Minerals and Energy to seek clarity on issues of royalties the affected communities are supposed to be paid by mining companies,” said Hon. Chauke.
For more information:
Namhla Luhabe
Cell: 079 527 0628
