Prasa to account for R13.9bn irregular expenditure in Parliament

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) will be in the hot seat on Wednesday when a hearing into R13.9-billion of irregular‚ fruitless and wasteful expenditure gets under way.

The agency will appear in front of the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) after being highlighted in auditor-general Kimi Makwetu’s latest report on government departments and entities earlier this month.

BusinessLIVE reported two weeks ago that MPs called for Makwetu’s office to be given teeth to enforce its recommendations after he revealed that irregular expenditure by government departments and parastatals soared parastatals soared to R46.36-billion in the 2015-16 financial year.

Six auditees were responsible for just more than 70% of this expenditure. Prasa and the Department of Water and Sanitation are included in the list‚ joined by three departments in the education sector and the Compensation Fund.

Also earlier this month‚ members of the Prasa board were given until the end of January next year to pay back money for extra meetings the board held. Chairman Popo Molefe had already paid back R680 000 at the end of October.

— TMG Digital/ BusinessLIVE