Ian Clayton
Some “struggle accounting” was uncovered in the Department of Trade and Industry by Auditor General Henri Kluever when he examined its accounts for a R3,1-million small business conference. The department spent an extra R1,2-million without authorisation over and above the R2-million it received from the Danish government for the second national conference on small business held between November 3 and 7 1997.
It opened a private bank account for the conference with a departmental official having signing powers, again without authorisation. It then asked the Department of State Expenditure for permission to open the account, but this was refused and the department was told that registration fees had to be paid directly to the government.
“The department did not adhere to this directive from the Treasury and banked all the registration fees from the delegates in the private account and defrayed expenditure therefrom,” Kluever said in his report on trade and industry for the 1997/98 financial year. Income and expenditure for the conference were dealt with outside the department’s books and accounts.
A “preliminary investigation” into this book account revealed the following shortcomings: “No proper financial records were kept and financial statements were not compiled”; “The expenditure could not in all cases be vouched for with acceptable documentation”; “Of the 74 cheques issued, only 11 returned cheques from the bank could be submitted by the department”; “The financial regulations and procurement regulations were not adhered to”; and “The completeness of the income could not be verified, since there was no supporting documentation”.
Kluever added: “The department also did not compile financial statements on the project before 1 March 1998 as required by the donor in the project document.”