Durban - In a rare show of unity, members of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature of all political parties have called for Premier Senzo Mchunu to withhold bonuses from senior public servants whose departments have irregular expenditure.
In total, departments have irregular expenditure of R4.3 billion incurred between March 2013 and 2014.
This suggestion was made when the Public Accounts Standing Committee (Scopa) met officials from the Auditor-General’s office and various departments at the legislature in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday.
Next week they will submit a formal recommendation to Mchunu to withhold the annual one-month bonus paid to department heads if they are found to have breached the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).
However, Scopa chairwoman Maggie Govender called for even harsher punishment, saying she wanted the premier to fire heads (including HODs, chief financial officers and supply chain managers) for breaking the law.
Scopa members said junior managers were often blamed for decisions which led to poor performance while it was not they who took the decisions.
“The buck stops with the senior managers but it appears there are very few consequences. If you commit financial harm you deserve to be hit where it hurts. Taking their bonuses will hurt them.” said Govender.
She said the managers would be given final warnings before being fired, adding that she was annoyed that departments kept repeating their irregular expenditure every year despite being warned.
“So far I have not heard of heads of departments being fired, but maybe there are disciplinary actions against them that I’m unaware of.”
Mchunu met senior government managers at Cedara, outside Pietermaritzburg, on Thursday where he told them that those whose departments had regressed should justify why they should not be held accountable.
The meeting was prompted by the auditor-general’s report which revealed that most departments had failed to achieve clean audit reports due to corruption, which included breaching tender processes.
Provincial treasury officials told Scopa that irregular expenditure had been found in 16 departments, including the premier’s office.
The Department of Education was found to have more than R3.3 billion of irregular expenditure followed by Health with R1.9bn. Social Development and Sport and Recreation also came in high with more than R400m and R193m respectively.
ANC MPL Sipho Nkosi, who chaired the finance portfolio committee, said that it would be difficult to recover irregular expenditure from Health and Education because “that would collapse service delivery”.
Explaining irregular expenditure, Nkosi said it was where departments spent money without following proper procedure. He said this could include awarding tenders without receiving three quotations, as required by law.
DA MPL Mark Steele said the government was facing a leadership crisis.
“Something is horrible in the government. There should be no condemnation without consequences.
“We need to be very sincere about the kind of consequence, and we cannot blame junior officials because the law says the buck stops with leaders.”
Public Servants’ Association provincial manager Claude Naicker welcomed the move to hold senior managers accountable.
“The time has come for the tables to turn. For a long time junior managers have been blamed when departments under-perform, but when there is good performance, senior managers take the credit,” he said.
However, he warned about firing people without following proper procedure, saying they should first be assisted to improve their performance.
The Mercury