Whatever happened to thedays of volunteerism? When people donated their expertise to not-for-profit institutions that served some public good? Nowadays, being on a board — particularly of a publicly funded cultural institution — appears to be just another means for some to keep up, or catch up, with the Khumalos.
Take the Freedom Park Trust. According to its financial statements for 2004/05, the nine people on the board of trustees were paid between R10 000 and R86 000 each, an average of just more than R38 000 per trustee.
In his report on the financial statements of the trust, the auditor general says: ”The Deed of Trust states that trustees will not directly or indirectly be remunerated for their services. Despite this, honoraria to the amount of R347 000 were paid to the trustees for their attendance of board meetings before the trust initiated proposals for amendments to the Deed of Trust.”
In response, the trustees declare: ”Our attention has been drawn to the fact that the payment of honorariums to the trustees was not in line with the Deed of Trust and the payments have since been discontinued. We are now engaging government to rectify the situation. The Deed of Trust … is being amended … to address, among others, the payment of honorariums to the trustees.”
Interesting, that. The trustees are paid honorariums in contravention of the trust deed. Now, ”to rectify the situation”, the deed of trust is being amended. The situation is not being rectified to reclaim the public funds from the high-profile trustees whose job it is to ensure that the deed of trust is complied with; rather, the trust deed is being changed to continue to allow the trustees to be paid.
In the year before the one being reported on, trustees were paid a total of R540 000. If it was a contravention of the trust deed in 2004/05, then it would have been a contravention in 2003/04 as well.
The current feeling — probably stemming from the experience of so many former struggling luminaries serving on a range of private-sector boards where they are paid for their services — is that people need to be remunerated for their services as they shoulder huge responsibilities for the well-being of publicly funded institutions. Even by these standards, though, the payments to the Freedom Park Trust trustees would be questionable, as the auditor general, in his ”Emphases of Matter” section states: ”The Public Finance Management Act stipulates that the accounting authority [in this case, the board of trustees] of a public entity is responsible for ensuring that expenditure of that public entity is in accordance with the approved budget … [however,] only 8,07% of the budget had been utilised for the construction and development of Freedom Park.”
In the private sector, board members who do not deliver to shareholders would be fired or have their remuneration cut in accordance with their lack of performance. Not so in the public sector, but then, what are shareholders — taxpayers — going to do about it?
A similar situation prevails at the Windybrow Centre for the Arts where, in the past financial year, the chairperson of its board was paid R35 950. Yet the auditor general, in heavily qualifying the financial statements of the institution, points out that ”the articles of association state that directors shall not be paid any remuneration for their services”.
The Windybrow received a subsidy of R4,493million in 2004/05 and, in that year, the theatre generated R102 934, although the auditor general states: ”Revenue consists of ticket sales and coffee shop sales.
”There was no system of control over such sales on which I could rely for the purpose of our audit, and there were no satisfactory auditing procedures. Consequently, I was unable to satisfy myself as to the completeness and accuracy of revenue.”
The major problem, I suppose, is not that these publicly funded institutions aren’t delivering, or that their governing boards are using their positions for self-enrichment. It is, no doubt, that the auditor general — and the media that cover his reports — is fundamentally racist.