Cape Town - The Department of Water Affairs and Sanitation this year boasted the dubious distinction of leading government departments when it came to unauthorised expenditure.
Figures released by the Auditor General Kimi Makwetu on the consolidated national and provincial audit outcomes at Parliament earlier today showed that the Department of Water and Sanitation had disclosed unauthorised expenditure of R526 million.
He said while audit results of 43 “auditees” had improved, these improvements were overshadowed by the 73 which had regressed from the previous year.
The Department of Water Affairs and Sanitation is essentially bankrupt, and according to the A-G, an amount of R392 million (75% of the money overspent) resulted from exceeded the budget for goods and services, and payments to the war on leaks programme.
Last month the Department of Water and Sanitation confirmed that it had racked up R6.1 billion in debt, R1.6bn for the 2018/2018 financial year.
KwaZulu Natal’s education department was the second worst department in terms of unauthorised expenditure with a total of R486 million - which was mainly due to public ordinary schools and special schools in the province.
The Free State Department’s of Police, Roads and Transport had unauthorised expenditure of R241 million, R169 million of this was money which had not been spent in accordance with the purpose of the budget, the balance was due to overspending in transport regulations.
Limpopo’s education department had overspent it’s budget by R193 million, mostly on infrastructure development due to prepayment to the Development Bank of Southern Africa.
The Free State’s health department had unauthorised overspending of R141 million, and the largest chunk of this was due to district health services in the province.
The Free State’s education department overspent its budget by R130 million because of the “compensation of employees due to insufficient budget allocation and budget cuts to fund other critical priorities”.
The Northern Cape education department overspent its budget by R123 million. The province’s health department overspent its budget b y R100 million.
The Eastern Cape education department overspent its budget by R58 million due to the inter-departmental budget transfers being done without the necessary treasury approval being obtained.
Statistics SA had R57 million in overspending, related mainly due to the economic statistics and statistical collection and outreach.