Johannesburg - The Gauteng Department of Education has disputed the Democratic Alliance’s claim that it incurred irregular expenditure of R1billion in the 2019/20 financial year, saying that the amount was R14 million.
The department said this was reflected in its financial statements that were yet to be audited.
The department revealed this after the DA accused it of incurring irregular expenditure of over R1 billion in the 2019/20 financial year. The party also accused the department of failing to take remedial action or ensure consequence management.
However, MEC Panyaza Lesufi said there was no truth to the DA’s assertions, accusing the party of political grandstanding and opportunism.
He said the DA erroniously lumped together audit outcomes for different years, “to reach this alarming figure of R1 billion.”
“The second error is to contend that the Department has failed to take remedial action against irregular expenditure.
“It is unfortunate and reckless for the DA to lump together historical issues and mislead the public by not providing a disaggregated report.
“‘The alarmist and sensational figure of R1 billion can only serve to tarnish the image of the Department and represent a basic misreading of Audit Reports. This is nothing other than political grandstanding and opportunism,” Lesufi said.
Lesufi said they welcomed public scrutiny of all aspects of their work from as it was crucial in revealing and addressing maladministration.
However, he said, the DA’s statement was replete with a errors to deliberately mislead the public.
“For the 2019/20 financial year, there was irregular expenditure of R14 million.
“Irregular in this respect means failure to adequately follow procurement procedure. This is of course not acceptable and the Department is determining whether there was untoward behaviour by any of its officials.
“The rest of the irregular expenditures refers to historical or legacy issues. It should be noted that irregular expenditure resulted from procurement procedural issues.
There was an uproar last week after it emerged that the department paid over 300 companies R431 million for cleaning and decontamination of schools was irregular.
The DA also said the money had been irregularly spent.
However, Lesufi said: “There is no audit finding that the R431 million on cleaning and decontamination of schools was irregular. In addition, this is still a subject of an investigation.”
IOL