Johannesburg - Gauteng provincial government officials have stolen more than R90 million of taxpayers’ money in the past five years, and virtually no action has been taken against the offenders.
Of the total funds of R91.5m, more than R67m was stolen last year alone – the biggest offenders being Gauteng Finance under MEC Barbara Creecy (R48.8m), and Economic Development under Lebogang Maile (R17m).
The Roads and Transport Department, under Ismail Vadi, lost R767 112 and Infrastructure Development under Nandi Mayathula-Khoza had R555 216 written off from its books.
The Social Development Department under then-MEC Faith Mazibuko lost R41 448, while Health under Qedani Mahlangu had the lowest total of theft – just under R8 000.
In 2010/11, the biggest offender was the Education Department (R2.2m) and in 2011/12 Social Development (R225 400).
Theft in the Health Department skyrocketed to R16.4m in 2012/13.
The Departments of Sport and Roads and Transport experienced theft of R21 405 and R7 400 respective, but Roads and Transport’s losses increased to R4.5m in 2012/13.
No thefts were reported in the following departments over the past five years: The Office of the Premier, Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, and Community Safety.
Only R50 was stolen from Human Settlements in 2010, and they maintained a clean record subsequently.
It was only last year that the theft ballooned to R67m. Initially more than R92.1m was stolen, of which the government managed to recover only R557 656.95, which is 0.6 percent of the total – the rest is still missing.
These were the findings of the Public Service Commission (PSC) in its report “State of the Public Service in Gauteng, 2015”, tabled before the Gauteng provincial legislature.
The PSC reported that over the past five years the provincial government reported 599 cases of financial misconduct but failed to report the majority of offenders.
According to the report, more than 80 percent of the offenders were never reported to the police or the Hawks, as required by Section 34 (1) of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities.
“Over the past five years, the finalised cases of misconduct have been fluctuating and the highest number of cases of misconduct reported was 189 in the 2012/13 financial year.”
The PSC noted that the departments had reported different statistics to the PSC and Auditor-General regarding the number of finalised cases.
“For example, the Department of Human Settlements reported nil cases of finalised misconduct to the PSC. However, to the Auditor-General, the Department of Human Settlements reported that there were 80 cases of finalised misconduct,” the report states.
The report found that the financial irregularities were high during the commission of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure by officials, but that these were often condoned if valid reasons existed which resulted in few finalised misconduct cases.
Detailing the crimes, the PSC said 63 percent of cases involved theft (48 percent) and fraud and corruption (15 percent), while 37 percent of cases involved financial mismanagement, misappropriation and gross negligence.
Of concern to the PSC, was that very little was done to nip corruption in the bud.
In 2011/2012, 189 offences were committed but only 2 percent of offenders were charged; the remaining 98 percent were still working.
Now, the DA in Gauteng wants Premier David Makhura to act or run the risk of losing his credibility in the fight against fraud and corruption.
DA Chief Whip Mike Moriarty said the figures brought into question the sincerity of Makhura’s commitment that his administration was “a proactive government (that took) a hardline against offending officials”.
- The Sunday Independent