The Standing Committee on Public Accounts has grilled ministers and senior officials over the unauthorised expenditure of R18 billion in a number of departments.
Minister of Public Service and Administration Noxolo Kiviet, Minister of Cooperative Governance Thembi Nkadimeng, Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation, David Mahlobo, and the Deputy Minister of Communications, Philly Mapulane, were some of the members of Cabinet who appeared before Scopa to account for unauthorised expenditures in their respective departments.
In the report of the National Treasury that was presented to Scopa it emerged the R18bn was incurred due to unauthorised expenditures over the years.
The Road Traffic Management Corporation overspent by R1.34bn over the implementation of the eNatis system.
The department of social development incurred R15bn in unauthorised expenditures. The department of public service and administration incurred R8.8 million in unauthorised expenditure.
Statistics South Africa also overspent by millions of rands. It overspent by R37.48 million in the 2017/18 financial year, R56.739 million in the 2018/19 financial year, and R47.617 million in the 2019/20 period.
Kiviet said they were now clamping down on unauthorised spending because of the current financial climate.
"This wouldn’t recur because the current arrangement is that anything outside of what is prescribed, that is, any deviation by any executive authority, must go through the Ministry. We do indicate to departments where checks and balances are that there must be a budget for what you are requesting, and if there is a deviation, there must be reasons justifiable enough for that to happen.
"Therefore, the current set-up in terms of recurrence is strengthened in terms of the regulations and directives that are in operation.
"At times, there is no amount of regulation that will substitute the political will to do the right thing. In as much as this is administrative, it also has the political will to do the correct thing.
"I would like to appeal that we need to have these (reports on unauthorised expenditure) off our table, whichever way we decide on them. It can’t be correct to have a matter hanging in the books for 10 years. It’s just not right," said Kiviet.
Nkadimeng said some of the spending in her department related to legal fees during the Nhlapo commission that was investigating disputes over traditional leadership.
Nkadimeng said when the commission was doing its work, it was difficult to determine the legal fees, and this resulted in unauthorised expenditure.
Some of the departments will make their presentations to Scopa on Wednesday.
Politics