The Gauteng education department has incurred an amount of more than R1bn on irregular expenditures for the 2019/20 financial year.

 The figures were revealed in the department’s annual report for the same period .

According to the report, this was as a result of:

• extension of the building lease commitment on a month-to-month basis amounting to over R123m;
• non-compliance with supply chain management processes relating to school nutrition tender amounting to more than R821m;
• non-compliance with supply chain management process relating to event management service of over R14m; and
• non-compliance with supply chain management processes relating to restorative repairs service tender amounting to over R2m.

According to the report, to prevent recurrence, the department had implemented corrective actions by developing additional controls to prevent irregular expenditure incurred from the prior year.

“However, the impact of legacy issues still contributes significantly to the current irregular expenditure. Disciplinary processes are followed in respect of officials that may be responsible for the irregular expenditure; however due to the volume of documentation to be evaluated during the tender process there are risks of human error because of the manual nature of processes. Despite this, the department is committed to prevent irregular expenditure,” read part of the report.

The DA voiced its concern over the amount incurred as a result of irregular expenditure. DA provincial shadow MEC for education Khume Ramulifho said the irregular expenditure amounts are increasing on a yearly basis, something that indicated that the department was failing when it comes to good governance.

“Lack of consequence management contributes to irregular expenditure and it is high time that both the head of department and chief financial officer should explain why the department has failed to take the necessary measures to avoid irregular expenditure arising from the procurement processes,” Ramulifho said.

He said the reports of more than R431m in irregular expenditure purported to have been used to decontaminate schools last year clearly confirms that the department is disregarding the Public Finance Management Act.

The report also shows that the department collected more than R56m in revenue compared to the projected R3.2m,  meaning that it over-collected by R24m.

This was as a result of an increase in the commission received from insurances and garnishees, change in the allocation of parking bays to only senior management members to include all officials that apply for parking, also the increase in number of applications for examination certificates and requests for the remarking or rechecking of examination scripts.

“Also the fines, penalties and forfeits revenue collected was R112,000 compared to R42,000 which was as a result of the increase in the number of employees charged with misconduct and cases were resolved with the payment of fines as a sanction. There were also recoveries from contractual departmental debt and recovery of expenditure from previous financial year.”

UPDATE

The department released a statement contradictory to the report saying they incurred R14 million for the 2019/2020 financial year.

“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,” Gauteng education spokesperson Steve Mabona said.

Breaking down the irregularities, Mabona said an amount of R125 million was incurred by the implementing agency of the department and the department did not participate in the procurement process of the implementing agency.

“The school nutrition tender was for 2017/2018 financial years and it could not be cancelled at the time as the learners would have resulted in not receiving meals and the matter was also a subject of forensic investigation and remedial steps taken.

The school furniture tender was declared irregular in 2018/2019 and the department cleared all audit findings except one in 2019/2020. The matter was referred for legal advice which was shared with the Auditor General,” Mabona said.

Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said it was unfortunate and reckless for DA to lump together historical issues and mislead the public by not providing a disaggregated report.

He added that this was nothing other than political grandstanding and opportunism on the DA's part.