Due to a lack of controls by the finance department at the cash-strapped South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), its employees splurged R11,33-million for the period January 1 2007 to July 31 this year on excessive petrol-card expenditure.
The interim SABC board, headed by Irene Charnley, withdrew petrol cards for management in July this year, except where there was a contractual obligation.
”However, by September 2009, the petrol cards were still used by senior and top management,” according to the damning Auditor General’s report on the SABC released in Parliament this week.
The report stated that a general manager in the finance department had written to indicate in August that he was not aware of a formal communication regarding the withdrawal of the petrol cards, except in a statement made by Charnley in a staff meeting.
The interim SABC board is now looking at the contractual implications of withdrawing all petrol cards.
While petrol cards were issued to top and senior management for the maintenance and running costs of vehicles purchased by employees, the Auditor General’s report found there was no policy prescribing a limit for usage.
”The policy should also be revised to include disciplinary or corrective actions for cases of excessive use,” the Auditor General’s report recommended.
The report also found that millions of rands had been spent in fruitless, wasteful and irregular spending at the SABC.
”It is just shocking. It is fraud and the message will go out, it doesn’t pay,” said Julie Kilian, Congress of the People MP who sits on Parliament’s communications portfolio committee. ”There were lack of controls and ”chommie” appointments on service providers.”
The Auditor General also investigated allegations regarding the licensing agreement with an external travel agent to utilise the SABC sport brand.
Minutes of a meeting by the former dissolved SABC board show that they raised their concerns about whether there had been proper compliance in this issue, but legal opinion was never provided, as requested.
The SABC spent a total of R11,29-million with the private travel company for travel arrangements made for the period September 1 2007 to June 2009. The company was not named in the report.
”No evidence can be submitted as to who approved the deviation to utilise the services of the private travel company, instead of utilising the services of SABC Airwave Travel, as stipulated in the SABC travel policy,” the Auditor General’s report stated.
The business plan for the Beijing Olympics trip by the SABC group executive members last year was not properly approved.
”The estimated cost for the Beijing Olympics trip increased from R5,79-million, as stated in the business plan, to R6-million, and no evidence was provided that it had been approved as an addendum to the business plan,” the Auditor General found.
An amount of R6-million was paid to the private travel company, and the amount was based on the invoice from the travel company, which charged travel packages for 33 people.
However, according to the final list of travellers provided, only 26 people travelled to the Beijing Olympics.
The trip to the Beijing Paralympics last year also fared a similar fate. The private travel company claimed travel packages for 12 people amounting to R1,82-million, which the SABC paid, but it has been established that only eight people travelled to the Beijing Paralympics.