National Treasury figures showing that KwaZulu-Natal’s education department had only spent 1% of its capital budget did not take into account work done by the public works department, the province’s education chief said on Thursday.
The department’s superintendent general, Dr Cassius Lubisi, said in a statement released on Thursday night that the department had spent R75-million of its annual infrastructure budget of R807,2-million.
”This represented not only 9,3% of the budget for the year, but also 84% of its [the department’s] targeted expenditure for the first quarter.”
He said that R56,7-million billed by the department of works had not been captured by the end of the first quarter into the department’s accounting system, from which the National Treasury draws its information.
”If one were to exclude the department of works payment, one would arrive at the mistaken conclusion that the KwaZulu-Natal department of education had spent a total of R18,7-million.”
Lubisi issued the statement after local media reported earlier this week — following the release of the National Treasury First Quarter Budget Report on July 28 — that only 1% of its infrastructure budget had been spent.
”I have decided to publish this report in response to the negative publicity recently published and broadcast in the media concerning the apparent poor performance and expenditure on the department’s infrastructure programmes in the first quarter of the 2006/07 financial year,” said Lubisi.
He said the National Treasury only reported on capital expenditure and not on any ”current costs”.
The National Treasury report shows that the province had only spent R8,7-million or 1% of its capital expenditure budget in the first quarter, a drop of 80,6% on the previous year.
Lubisi said a meeting has been held with National Treasury officials to resolve the differences in reporting on expenditure.
The department has spent a further R112,3-million since the end of the first quarter, bringing its infrastructure expenditure to R192,8-million.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation earlier this week said the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union would request a meeting with provincial education minister Ina Cronje to discuss the infrastructure expenditure. Attempts to contact the union were unsuccessful. — Sapa