Secret report highlights mismanagement

INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS

Minister of Women, Children and People with Disability Lulu Xingwana. File photo: Sizwe Ndingane

Johannesburg - Corruption and mismanagement have been highlighted in a top secret report about the Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities.

The report, now in the possession of Beeld newspaper, was compiled after an investigation originally requested by minister Lulu Xingwana, and which Xingwana herself, according to the newspaper, does not want to share with MPs.

Among the report's findings is of an official who was awarded R180 000 for working overtime, a nurse who was appointed as director, bursaries amounting to thousands of rands awarded without any repayment agreement, and friends who were given preference for senior management positions over better qualified candidates.

Xingwana herself was recently in the crossfire for the alleged purchase of millions of rands worth of luxury office furniture for her head office.

The report warns that the department faces possible legal action after determining that officials lacking qualifications and some who even had criminal records, were appointed to senior positions.

One of the officials only had matric and a diploma in nursing, but was appointed to a top position over a candidate who had BA degree in political science, a master's degree in project management and an LLB degree.

Departmental spokesman Cornelius Monama said disciplinary measures had been initiated and that the officials in question had already been temporarily suspended with full pay. - Sapa