The Executive Council (Exco) of the North West Province has approved withdrawal of extension of the term of the North West Parks and Tourism Board (NWPTB), MEC for Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism, Motlalepula Rosho announced on Thursday.
The resolution adopted by Exco in its fortnightly meeting chaired by Premier Mme Thandi Modise in Mahikeng yesterday approved that MEC Rosho should proceed with the appoint an administrator to both North West Parks and Tourism Board and Dirapeng until the new board is appointed on the 1 November 2012.
The Exco resolution empowered MEC Rosho to appoint an accounting authority for both NWPTB and an administrator for Dirapeng until the new Board is appointed.
The North West Parks and Tourism Board Group of Companies had in direct contradiction and non compliance with the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) not been able to submit the annual report for the period ended March 2011 and had not been able to so within the prescribed time for the year March 2012.
While the NWPTB had for the past few years submitted its annual financial statements on time for auditing by the Auditor General as prescribed by the PFMA, the group had not submitted financial statements of Dirapeng and Golden Leopard Resort for 2009/10 and 2010/11 respectively.
Interventions by the NWPTB to assist with consolidation including its deployment of two board members to the Dirapeng Board to assis with consolidation of annual financial statements were met with hostility and rejected despite the fact that the Board of Dirapeng reports to the NWPTB by law.
According to Rosho the Auditor General had on the Monday indicated that Dirapeng is to get a disclaimer as it had again failed to provide the Auditor General with all the required information. The subsidiary of Dirapeng, Golden Leopard Resort (GLR) had also not cooperated with the Auditor General in submitting the relevant documents for audit. The same board members of the Dirapeng are broad of directors for GLR.
The MEC took the decision to recommend to Exco the withdrawal of the extension of the term of the board as the consolidation of annual financial statements was long overdue and there were no reasons to believe that Dirapeng would meet their own deadline on the matter. This was despite the fact that Dirapeng had had the matter on its agenda for the past meetings.
Exco concurred that the sad state of affairs at Dirapeng calls on the MEC to take drastic intervention steps to address the problem in the future and that this is despite the fact that the term of the Board is coming to an end ;and had sought Exco’s approval to extend the period of the board to ensure that there is Consolidation of financial Statement in order for the New Board to start on a clean state.
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