The North West Provincial Legislature Standing Committee on Provincial Public Accounts chaired by Hon. Smuts Matshe has directed the Department of Health and Department of Education to urgently address matters raised by udit reports as well as matters of concern through post audit action plans. This follows Public Finance Management Act public hearings with the two departments over 2023/24 audit outcomes. The Provincial Public Accounts Committee has started the PFMA public hearings for the cycle 2023/24 where Departments and Entities have to account on all matters raised by the Auditor General. The process started with Departments with the biggest budgets in the Provincial government and all other Entities will appear before end of November 2024.
On the financial year under review, the Department of Education acquired a qualified audit opinion with decreased number of qualifications compared to previous years and the qualification areas include material misstatements relating to immobile tangible assets especially Mobile Classrooms, prior period errors and unauthorized, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure (UIF&W) largely as a result of non-compliance in Supply Chain Management processes.
MEC for the Department of Education, Viola Motsumi said the number of audit findings of the department have been reduced from eight to five due to commitment to deal findings from prior years. “We have established a dedicated team working with the Provincial Treasury and Office of the Auditor General to implement the post audit action plan with regular monitoring and evaluation with proper timeframes. Immovable tangible assets’ finding was with regards to mobile classrooms which were supposed to be on the department’s asset register but were on the schools’ asset registers.
“We also had a challenge of non-compliance on supply chain management processes where it was decentralized to districts and schools, and there was no delegation of powers on signing of certain contracts such as the National Schools Nutrition Programme but the matter is being addressed by the department.
“We also had a serious challenge of manual recordkeeping which became a serious qualification area but the department is currently implementing a digital record-keeping system to ensure that our documents are stored on a software with a backup system,” said MEC Motsumi.
The Department of Health’s audit outcomes remained on unqualified with findings, and has shown improvements on administration due to implementation of good financial controls. MEC for the Department of Health, Sello Lehari said most qualification areas were with regards to increasing accruals and payables; manual recordkeeping, increasing irregular expenditure, increasing expenditure on litigations and external service providers appointed to deal with disciplinary cases and accumulating interest due to overdue accounts. “We’re addressing these issues through the post audit action plan including matter of irregular multi-year security contracts, supply and delivery of coal and appointment of private ambulances without following proper supply chain processes,” said MEC Lehari.
Hon. Matshe said the Departments must implement consequence management on all supply chain management non-compliance and transgressions including contract management. “We need necessary intervention by the Accounting Officers through proper investigations on UIF&W in line with the Regulatory Framework. Both MECs have responsibilities to ensure that there are proper monitoring of the performance and financial systems. There should be implementation of proper electronic records management systems with a backup server.
“We owe it to the people of our country to provide quality services and account in a transparent manner on how their resources are utilized. Our limited public resources should at all times be utilized for the development of the people as a whole and not for the benefit of some few selfish, immoral and corrupt individuals.
“Whilst some progress has been registered in the audit outcomes, immediate action is required on matters raised by the Auditor General and the Provincial Public Accounts Committee. We need to work hard to regain public trust and most importantly the people’s confidence in our system of democratic governance” said Hon. Matshe.
He said the Committee also urges the Departments to conduct in-year financial and performance monitoring and training of officials in supply chain management units.
“Immediate training of Supply Chain Management officials is extremely urgent. Furthermore, Departments should improve on the 30 day turn-around payment of service providers so as to avoid accumulation of interests due to non-payments. The two Departments are expected to provide written responses to questions raised by the Committee. The Committee will track progress on implementation of Post- Audit Action Plans and a follow up session with the Departments of Education as well as Health will be convened within three months.” said Hon. Matshe.
For media enquiries or to arrange interviews with the Chairperson of the Committee contact Namhla Luhabe on 079 527 0628.
