Cape Town - Senior officials in government departments could be in trouble with their finance bosses in Parliament, after members of the standing committee on appropriations proposed they be refused bonuses for underspending by billions of rand.
The standing committee made the proposal at its meeting with the National Treasury on Tuesday, after it emerged some departments had spent as little as 44 percent of their budget by the third quarter.
The Treasury told the standing committee departments had underspent by R149 billion by the end of December.
While departments will close their books for the 2014/15 financial year at the end of the month, the full picture will be known later.
The Treasury was in Parliament to brief MPs on the third quarter expenditure.
ANC MP Sheila Shope-Sithole said they needed to identify senior officials responsible for underspending in individual departments.
She said they had to take away bonuses from the officials responsible. She said this was done during her time in Limpopo when she was chairing the health portfolio committee, and the same mechanism could be implemented in the national legislature.
Shope-Sithole was supported by the committee, with its chairman, Paul Mashatile, saying they had to identify the culprits.
Shaik Emam, of the National Freedom Party, also said this would serve as a good lesson for the senior officials.
“We must identify the culprits and they must face the consequences. This is not about money but about people not performing,” said Emam.
Mashatile said all departments that had underspent by the third quarter should explain themselves to the committee next month.
He said figures from the Treasury showed that there has been underexpenditure.
Some of the reasons provided by the departments to the Treasury were alarming. Mashatile said some of the reasons were related to the filling of vacant posts and others on non-payment of suppliers.
The committee chair told fellow MPs that President Jacob Zuma has often urged departments to pay suppliers on time.
Mashatile and fellow ANC members shot down a proposal by opposition MPs that the Treasury stop the practice of taking away money from underspending provincial departments.
Ndaba Gcwabaza, of the ANC, said he did not believe the suggestion by the opposition would help the situation.
“I share the sentiment with my colleague, National Treasury is correct to take away the money. It will be grossly irresponsible not to do so. What we need to do is to target those departments that are not performing,” said Gcwabaza.
Mashatile said they did not rejoice when the Treasury took away funds from non-performing departments or provinces.
“You can take away money from Limpopo and Gauteng, but the people of Limpopo are not better off. They are worse off,” he said.
Acting deputy director-general for public finance at the Treasury Velile Mbethe said:
“We take away from entities that are not performing to entities that are performing to minimise underspending.”
Cape Times