Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - Former standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) chairperson Themba Godi has decried the National Treasury’s failure to submit audited financial statements to Parliament in line with the Public Finance Management Act.
Godi said government departments had until September 30 each year to submit their annual reports, which was six months from the end of the financial year on March 31.
He said the auditor-general (AG) kept slating the treasury for wasting money on the Integrated Financial Management System, which had not been implemented in more than a decade, while its software licences were being paid for annually.
“What is telling is that the delay is caused by a desire by the treasury to get a favourable audit opinion from the AG about irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure that has been recurrent over the years,” said Godi, also the leader of the African People’s Convention.
He said the same issue had arisen previously over the years he had been Scopa chairperson. Godi was replaced as Scopa chair by IFP member Mkhuleko Hlengwa after the 2019 general election.
“Among the controversies in this project, treasury purchased licenses for IT software from an American company, Oracle, for which it is paying annual licence fees, yet the software is not being used because the project is not complete or operational. These licence fees run into millions of rand annually, and had been purchased many years ago. The AG has been making findings that expenditure on these licences is fruitless and wasteful expenditure,” he said.
Godi said the treasury’s mandate was to distribute the taxpayers’ money to government departments, municipalities and state-owned entities while ensuring that the funds were spent prudently. In this regard, the treasury was failing to lead by example, he said.
“Treasury wants to negotiate itself out of this waste of public funds. The APC condemns the National Treasury for trying to have the rules bent to evade accountability,” Godi said.
National Treasury media liaison officer Cleopatra Mosana acknowledged receipt of media questions, but indicated that she would need more time to respond, as she was not in her office.
Pretoria News