Historical debt in the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has greatly contributed to fruitless, wasteful and irregular expenditure in the DCS in the 2019-20 financial year, the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services heard yesterday.
Irregular expenses amounted to more than R4 billion, with more than R1 billion accounting for its contract with African Global Operations, also known as Bosasa, for the procurement of perishable provisions where contracts were not in place.
Committee member, Mr Werner Horn, expressed his concern over this issue as he said he was under the impression that all contracts with Bosasa were cancelled. In response, the DCS said all Bosasa-related contracts were cancelled last year. However, this amount is due to historical debt and not for a new contract. Money for the perishables had to be paid but the National Treasury said the DCS should have foreseen this and a contract should have been in place.
The committee heard the investigation teams conducted the investigations on the basis of Irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure files and registers obtained from Supply Chain Management (SCM). Overall, a combined total of 988 cases of both irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure are either under investigation or finalised against a total of 1 204 cases reported on both registers. These translates to 82% (988/1 204) of cases under investigation or investigated.
The total number of irregular expenditure cases under investigation as at 31 July 2020 is 228 cases, and 599 cases were finalised, resulting in an overall of 93% (825/891) cases that are either investigated or under investigation. Furthermore, 51% (161/313) of the reported fruitless and wasteful expenditure cases were investigated to date. A total of 105 thereof are in progress whereas 56 were finalised.
In addition to the irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure cases registered, the department is also conducting investigations on 154 cases of irregular expenditure as reported by the Auditor-General through Computer Assisted Audit Techniques (CAATS).
Mr Steve Swart, a committee member, enquired about consequence management for staff members who do not adhere to policy, regulations and law whilst another member, Ms Wilma Newhoudt-Druchen, said inefficiencies in the processes cause the delay with contracts.
The DCS said in response that in light of challenges and root causes, a number of steps have been put in place to address irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. In relation to the lack of skills and continuous training of SCM officials, the department introduced annual SCM National Workshops since 2017. This platform provides opportunities to SCM officials to learn, gain knowledge, share best practices for improved compliance to laws and regulations. Regarding the review of policies and procedures, the committee heard that the reviewed policies were approved on 19 March 2019 so as to strengthen internal controls and to address issues of non-compliance to SCM prescripts.
By Rajaa Azzakani
3 September 2020
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