Durban - The KwaZulu-Natal Education Department got a special mention in Auditor- General Kimi Makwetu’s First Special Report on the financial management of the government’s Covid-19 initiatives.
Makwetu’s report highlighted allegations regarding the pricing of personal protective equipment and apparent irregular expenditure, cover quoting and the awarding of contracts to suppliers whose tax affairs were not in order with the SA Revenue Services.
Among the findings were:
Only two written price quotations were obtained instead of three when procuring latex gloves to the value of R160770. There was no recorded approved deviation in violation of Treasury regulations so this was deemed to be irregular expenditure.
Quotations were obtained from three service providers for procurement of sanitisers to the value of R45627. Two of the suppliers were not registered on the central supplier database, making this irregular expenditure.
Contracts totalling R521867 were awarded to two service providers who were not tax compliant at the time. This was in violation of Treasury regulations and deemed to be irregular expenditure.
Quotations totalling R491625 were received from two related suppliers, one of which was awarded the contract. Both have the same addresses and are owned by the same person, which shows possible cover quoting in violation of regulations.
20 B-BBEE points were allocated to one service provider awarded two contracts totalling R550119. There was no B-BBEE certificate to confirm the level in the information submitted for audit. This is contrary to regulations 3 and 4 of Preferential Procurement Regulations of 2017 and deemed an irregular expenditure.
The Mercury