Cape Town - The rocketing of irregular state expenditure from R26 billion in 2012 to a staggering R62bn this year has shocked members of the standing committee on public accounts.
Scopa chairman Themba Godi told Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu on Wednesday that it was unacceptable that the figure had been R26bn in 2012 and R27bn last year – but had leapt to R62bn in 2013/14.
He said this meant certain things were not being done correctly in departments and entities.
The state needed to get its house in order.
“Procedural processes are not for decoration, they are for compliance,” Godi, of the African People’s Convention, said.
Makwetu was briefing Scopa on the financial performance of departments and entities in the last financial year.
In his report to the committee, Makwetu said a number of factors contributed to irregular expenditure.
He said that during 2011/12 the irregular expenditure was R26.2bn and the following financial year it increased slightly, and in 2013/14 it shot up to R62bn.
He told Scopa that the causes related to the flouting of supply chain management rules and procedures in the awarding of tenders.
There were 93 percent instances of the violation of supply chain management regulations.
Tenders were issued without being put out for competitive bidding, said Makwetu.
Godi said that while in some cases tenders were issued without following processes, officials also had the tendency to cut corners when it came to supply chain management.
Officials did not want to follow the supply chain management rules on procurement because these processes delayed them in issuing tenders, he said.
Makwetu said irregular expenditure was one area that had been a constant pain to the government.
“The reason we stay put in this area of irregular expenditure much as we do is that we don’t test the intent for the deviation,” he said.
“What we are focusing on is that much of the deviation happens in an environment where there is internal control.
“It can be a genuine error or it cannot be an error,” the auditor-general told the committee.
“It is incumbent on those exercising oversight to investigate why there was an error.”
Godi also told Makwetu he was shocked that there were still departments at national and provincial levels of the government that used consultants for a range of tasks, including balancing their books.
He said he thought it was only municipalities that continued to use consultants.
Makwetu said in his report that government departments had spent R600 million on consultants.
He also told MPs that there had been unauthorised expenditure of R2.6bn.
ANC MP Nyami Booi said he wanted the government to recover money lost through irregular expenditure as well as through unauthorised expenditure.
He said that the onus was on Parliament to help the Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene, to get this money back.
This follows Nene’s announcement in his medium-term budget policy statement last week that he was trying to cut unnecessary costs in government.
He listed cuts in spending that he said would saving the state R10bn.
Cape Times