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ZIWAPHI • VOL 4 NO 6 • 26 MARCH - 8 APRIL 2010

NELSPRUIT

A senior official in Mpumalanga escaped criminal charges on Thursday after the select committee on public accounts (Scopa) gave him “one last chance” to get his department into order.

The provincial watchdog harshly warned Mathew Mohlasedi, the head of department of public works, roads and transport, that violating section 86 of the Public Finance Management Act could lead to a jail term.

“According to section 86 you, the accounting officer of the department, should either be jailed for a period not exceeding five years or pay a fine,” said Scopa chairperson Fish Mahlalela during a sitting in Nelspruit.

“The act stipulates that the accounting officer is guilty if he fails to make sure effective and appropriate steps are taken to prevent unauthorised expenditure,” he added.

Mohlasedi, who appeared before the committee with fellow officials from his department, had been called to answer questions about it overspending its 2008/2009 budget by R9-million.

The HOD explained that his department was under pressure to pay staff salaries when they had no budget to do so.

“Our department requested money from treasury but we were never given any cent. The option was to either overspend or not pay our staff,” said Mohlasedi.

A furious Mahlalela rubbished the explanation, saying it was an insult to him as chairperson of the committee and a former MEC in the same department.

“I was not born yesterday. The explanation you are giving is for people who don’t know better. You wilfully overrode an executive decision issued to all departments to cut costs and stop filling vacant posts. But you took it upon yourself to go ahead, hiring, knowing very well that you don’t have money to pay those people. Now you want to blame treasury. That is not acceptable,” said Mahlalela.

He said an accounting officer had not right to let officials in his finance sections spend money they did not have.

Lashing out, Mahlalela asked Mohlasedi and his officials to produce proof that they had taken effective steps to stop unauthorised expenditure from reoccurring.

“It is about time we set an example and make history in this province by sending you to jail. You are guilty because you took no steps to stop unauthorised expenditure from occurring. We cannot allow HODs to continue to adopt a rotten culture of recklessly condoning unauthorised and irregular expenditure. You are warned to go fix the matter. This is your last chance,” said Mahlalela.

He said he was “sick and tired” of officials playing games with Scopa and public funds.

“The only reason you won’t be facing criminal charges is because our records indicate that you are still new in this department. Some of the mess was created by your predecessors,” said Mahlalela.

Scopa members Candith Mashego-Dlamini, Thandi Shongwe and Anthony Benadie all called for HODs to be criminally charged for violating the Public Finance Management Act.

The Scopa members were also shocked that the department had incurred R51-million in accruals for the 2008/2009 financial year.

They asked Mohlasedi to explain his understanding of accruals.

“At this point in time, my accounting is being challenged [sic]. I only did accounting twelve years ago,” Mohlasedi said.

Provincial auditor-general Bryant Mdlongwa explained that departments were manipulating unauthorised expenditure by turning it into accruals.

“The framework is being abused because officials turn unauthorised expenditure into accruals, which are simply money owed to suppliers by the end of a financial year,” said Mdlongwa.

He said while accruals represented money the department had in its budget but could not pay out due to the closure of a financial year, some departments registered accruals as money they owed because of a lack of budget in a current financial year.