Durban - The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education is still entangled in a multimillion-rand deal involving the procurement and distribution of school stationery more than a decade ago.
Department head, Dr Nkosinathi Sishi, and MEC Peggy Nkonyeni admitted that the company involved, Indiza Infrastructure Solutions, was still owed R99 million.
This emerged in the finance portfolio committee sitting at the provincial legislature this week.
The saga involved a tender awarded to Indiza between 2000 and 2005 to procure and distribute stationery in KZN.
The department later took the company to court amid allegations of fraud, forgery and uttering.
On Tuesday, department officials appeared before the committee to table the department’s budget plan for the 2015/16 financial year.
Committee chairman, Sipho “KK” Nkosi, demanded to know what progress had been made on various investigations raised in November, on which the department had to report to the committee this week.
The committee plays an oversight role on departmental finances.
“We (the committee) are appointed to ask these questions. I’m told that you owe a particular company (referring to Indiza) more than R100m and you decided to challenge this in court and you lost, yet you didn’t pay that company,” he said.
“If you lost in court, why didn’t you pay as per the court order? We appeal to you to pay within 30 days.”
Sishi said at some point the department had been prepared to pay.
“The treasurer stopped us because the company was said to have some outstanding issues with Sars, at the time the matter was in court, we were told that the amount owed was R99m,” he said.
“We take the matters raised seriously and (these) will be handled by the department.”
Treasury head Simiso Magagula said: “Treasury is awaiting a court order instructing the province to pay. The court order will specify the full amount owed.”
Both departments provided no further details.
Other investigations include the head count of pupils in all KZN schools, as well as teachers and officials who are on full paid suspension after they were implicated in unlawful activities.
The head count was instituted after it was discovered that certain school principals inflated their numbers to gain bigger financial allocations.
The investigation on fraudulent qualifications was also raised.
On Tuesday, department officials were on the back foot as committee members sought answers on matters raised previously. The department explained that the head count was almost concluded, and that the results would be available at the end of this quarter.
Nkosi fired back, reminding the officials that at the last meeting in November, the department had said the head count process would be finished by December.
“In our last engagement, you said you were done with the schools except for one district,” he said.
“We have a vested interest in the head count because it involves government finances, so we need to know how many ghost learners were there so that financial allocation to districts can be adjusted.”
The department’s head of human resources, advocate Bheki Masuko, said the analysis was a “work in progress”.
“We have the assistance of the office of the Treasury and they have promised that by the end of March, the work will be done.
“In the next sitting of this committee, we will have the report,” Masuko said.
The plea was accepted.
Daily News