Parliament, Wednesday, 23 May 2018  The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has told the National Treasury to develop systems that will prevent national and provincial departments, municipalities and entities to continue committing corruption through deviations and expansions. Scopa wants the National Treasury to firmly establish a process of handling approvals so that there are collective agreements for the decisions that are taken.

Based on the report presented by the National Treasury today, Scopa has noticed that there is a lot of corruption that is taking place in departments, municipalities and entities through deviations and expansions and there is no consequence management that takes place. Scopa wants government to start instituting charges against officials who try to find ways of cheating the system by defrauding the system.

Scopa supported the centralisation of government procurement precisely because it wanted corruption through supply chain management to be a thing of the past but it seems as if even though there is a central chief procurement office, there is a lot of corruption that is happening through irregular tenders. Scopa has noted that the top three entities and departments in deviations for quarter 3 and 4 of 2017/18 is the Department of Defence at R734 million, Eskom at R553 million and the State Information Technology Agency (Sita) at R288 million. The top three entities and departments for expansions for quarter 3 and 4 of 2017/18 is Eskom R11.3 billion, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) at R917 million and South African Post Office (Sapo) at R313 million.

Scopa is aware that currently departments and entities are not required to report on deviations that are under the 15% threshold. Scopa wants the National Treasury to request reports on all deviations from departments, municipalities and entities because it has often been found that that is where a lot of corruption takes place. Therefore, Scopa believes it is important for the National Treasury to have detailed reports on all deviations and expansions, irrespective of the amount.

ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF SCOPA, MR THEMBA GODI. 

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