Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - The National Treasury has defended its failure to submit audited financial statements to Parliament.
Former chairperson of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), Themba Godi, slated the Treasury for violating the Public Finance Management Act.
Godi said the National Treasury was supposed to be the custodian of the act, not the one trying to evade it.
At the centre of the Treasury’s failure to submit its statements to Parliament was a philosophical debate on what constitutes wasteful and fruitless expenditure. For years, the auditor-general (A-G) has criticised 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.
As a result, when government departments were to file their statements with the National Assembly by September 30, the Treasury’s books were nowhere to be seen.
The Treasury’s communication department did not deny that the A-G had found them wanting. The team said they had asked Parliament fr an extension to submit final financial statements because of unsettled disputes. “The national Treasury is disputing the methodology used by the A-G in determining fruitless and wasteful expenditure in respect of the Integrated Financial Management System’s maintenance and support.
“Malleable interpretations of fruitless and wasteful expenditure were preventing accounting officers from approving innovative ideas that could assist the government, the team said. “The National Treasury is concerned that many honest accounting officers have become risk-averse, given current very wide interpretations of irregular or fruitless and wasteful expenditure.”
Godi, president of the African People’s Convention, said: “It is blame-shifting to say the A-G has a narrow interpretation of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. The National Treasury has been an enforcer of these interpretations all along. When I was chairing Scopa, we had about four hearings on the Integrated Financial Management System project. At the last one
in December 2018 we were looking at the 400-page Nexus forensic report, which laid bare the malfeasance.
“We support the A-G, and believes she won’t compromise herself to whitewash the National Treasury’s malfeasance. There has been an increasing tendency of state institutions to challenge the A-G’s findings, demanding favourable audit findings for breaches
of legislation. There has been drawn-out appeals, physical threats to A-G staff and threats of court action, with the incompetents demanding clean audit findings. The National Treasury has now joined that rogue gallery.”
A-G spokesperson Africa Boso said they would comment at a later stage.
Pretoria News