JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Thursday
MPUMALANGA’S cash-strapped provincial administration has grounded all government vehicles, except emergency or other essential services, until March 2001 as part of a package of extraordinary cost curtailment measures.
Provincial government official spokeswoman Joy Letlonkane also confirmed that government landline and cellular telephone expenses would be cut dramatically and the use of all other government resources policed to halt abuses.
The move comes a week after provincial Auditor General Douglas Maphiri slammed provincial authorities for poor financial management, inadequate financial controls and dangerously flawed computer payment systems.
All financial transactions will be monitored by a cabinet-appointed task team consisting of departmental heads and other senior managers.
Letlonkane denied the measures were linked to a leaked cabinet memorandum drafted by provincial finance superintendent general Zakes Dube that claims officials had overspent R508,4m since April.
The memorandum warned of “dreadful consequences” and said the province risked being placed under financial curatorship unless financial controls were immediately reformed.
Dube suggested a freeze on all new staff appointments, scrapping planned capital projects and urged that order books be confiscated from departments with the worst records for overspending.
He also that officials were abusing government vehicles for private business after hours and on weekends, and were abusing their telephone privileges.
His four-page report noted that some departments had overspent up to R291m each on projected monthly budgets, with no indication of slowing down or tightening financial controls.
Dube stressed that senior officials were personally to blame for the financial crisis, and claimed they regularly failed to check payments, repeatedly failed to reprioritise expenditure and regularly incurred additional expenses via legal fees or penalties for failing to honour simple contractual obligations.
Premier Ndaweni Mahlangu, whose own office overspent R4,1m, rejected Dube’s concerns at the time saying the cabinet had reviewed Mpumalanga’s accounts and management systems and concluded that the administration was “healthy”.
Letlonkane insisted that any similarities between the current cost curtailment measures and Dube’s suggestions were “purely coincidental”. – African Eye News Service