Durban - In what she herself has called an “extraordinary measure”, KwaZulu-Natal Education MEC Peggy Nkonyeni has appointed an independent committee of law and finance experts to investigate how her department spends its money.
She intends to get to the root of why her department consistently fails to pay service providers on time, mistakenly continues to pay salaries to ex-employees, and has incurred R2.68 billion worth of irregular expenditure.
Nkonyeni announced the probe at the department’s Durban head office on Thursday.
This was less than a week after the KZN legislature’s finance committee was told that the department was set to suspend the construction of schools at the end of this month, because of perpetual money problems.
MPLs have traditionally been sympathetic to the department over its cash woes, arguing that it was underfunded by the Treasury.
Last week, however, ANC MPL Mthandeni Dlungwana urged Nkonyeni to look into whether her department was appropriately managing its finances.
Dlungwana could not fathom how it was possible that a service provider went unpaid for as long as five months.
Fellow ANC MPL Important Mkhize suggested there seemed to be a “laxity” in financial controls in the department, calling it a “serious indictment”.
On Thursday, Nkonyeni admitted that a “lack of proper fiscal controls” in the department had led to her appointing the committee.
For three consecutive years, the department has received qualified audit reports.
As at the end of the last financial year, the department had:
* Incurred R2.68bn in irregular expenditure because of not complying with supply chain management procedures.
* Racked up more than R260 million in unauthorised expenditure because it overspent its budget.
* Continued to pay salaries to employees who had either resigned or had been fired.
The department’s current budget sits at R39bn, of which 87% goes towards salaries.
The department has on numerous occasions blamed its money troubles on its budget being consistently too small to accommodate wage increases for teachers which are decided at a national level.
Nkonyeni said the issues red-flagged in the latest report by the auditor-general had not gone unnoticed by Premier Senzo Mchunu, and the provincial cabinet (on which Nkonyeni serves).
“Needless to say both forums were dismayed with the state of affairs in the department,” she said.
“It was also apparent that there is not sufficient capacity within the department to deal with these challenges. I was therefore duty-bound, as the political head of the department, to take this extraordinary measure to deal with these challenges once and for all. The committee is to generally investigate and advise my office on addressing these consistent challenges.”
The committee has three months to do its work, and will be chaired by attorney Gcwalisile Twala. The three other members of the committee include a public policy expert, an advocate and a chartered accountant.
Nkonyeni has not ruled out that an outcome of the investigation might be criminal charges, but told journalists she was not sure that fraud or corruption was at play, or whether it was simply a case of ineffectiveness.
In reaction to Nkonyeni’s announcement, the chairman of the legislature’s finance portfolio committee, Sipho Nkosi, said that while the department was indeed underfunded, there was also money being wasted. This included some of the food suppliers for the government feeding scheme mistakenly being paid twice and employing substitute teachers instead of ensuring that surplus teachers were moved to vacant classrooms.
Nkosi also questioned whether all the office buildings being leased by the department were being fully utilised.
Allen Thompson, the deputy head of the National Teachers Union, said Nkonyeni was to be congratulated for taking the “unusual” step.
“We can’t understand why the department claims not to have money. This is a move in the right direction.”
On a cautionary note, Thompson said he hoped the investigation would not turn out to be a “wishy-washy” process.
DA MPL Mbali Ntuli welcomed the inquiry, saying it was “crunch time” for Nkonyeni.
She also pointed out that the department was wasting money while many critical posts remained unfilled.
The consequence of the inability to timeously pay suppliers for the feeding scheme was that children went hungry, and small businesses went bankrupt, Ntuli said.
The Mercury