and clothes
Andy Duffy
An independent probe has found that the Student Representative Council (SRC)of the troubled University of the North (Turfloop) spent more than R1,3- million last year on items such as hired cars, catering and clothes.
Poor controls had also left the SRC accounts open to fraud – more than half the expenditure probed lacked supporting documentation.
Accountants KPMG, which investigated the SRC’s finances as part of an annual audit, refused to sign off the accounts – for the year to last September – because of the gaping holes.
“We could not obtain supporting documents for a substantial portion of total expenditure and were thus unable to verify the validity of all expenses incurred,” the firm’s Pietersburg office notes. “Due to the significance of [these] matters … we do not express an opinion on the [SRC’s] statement of receipts and payments.”
The SRC stands by its accounting efforts. Ishmael Malale, adviser to SRC president Gilbert Kganyago, says the auditors failed to trace all the information available. He says SRC expenditure is cleared with the relevant structures – including the university’s student affairs department. Department officials confirm they check the SRC’s financial activities.
Malale says the SRC’s main difficulty is not its overspending, but its lack of funding. Total income last year was nearly R1,7-million; R1,6-million from a student levy provided by the university. But it spent more than R2- million. The SRC was R1,36-million in the red at the end of September 1997, including a nearly R1-million loss from the previous financial year. Malale says the SRC should be given a budget of R2-million a year.
The release of the report, leaked from students, follows last week’s disclosures about the SRC’s apparently cavalier attitude to its finances. Documents from the university claimed the SRC had blown more than R6-million in the past three years, and was running the campus as its own private business.
Malale dismisses the allegations. The KPMG report also does not support the allegation that over-expenditure last year was R2,5-million. Some campus insiders say this is merely because KPMG is unable to trace all the spending.