Africa-Press – Botswana. The 60th Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has raised concerns about the books of accounts of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.
The committee is examining books of accounts for the Financial Year ending March 31, 2021.
PAC chairperson, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi said the Auditor General’s report revealed that the ministry had among other challenges failed to collect debt of telephone bills from employees, salary over payments, misallocation of funds, unprecedented escalation of project costs and advance salary payment to an allegedly non-existence employee.
On the issue of over payments, PAC wanted the accounting officer to explain salary over payments of some 57 officers, of which nine were dikgosi. It was revealed that the ministry paid salaries of the said dikgosi even though their work contracts were expired/awaiting renewal.
Permanent Secretary, Ms Gabatlotlane Mogapi explained that the salary over payments was as a result of the said dikgosi extending their service to the people while awaiting renewal of contracts.
She said lack of operational standards resulting in poor planning led to a situation where some of dikgosi who were engaged on contractual basis providing service to the public while awaiting renewal of their contracts.
She confirmed that even though issues of Bogosi were in some instances difficult to deal with, her ministry had since rectified the error, therefore the process of renewing dikgosi work contracts would start at least three months before they expire.
Ms Mogapi said there were cases of dikgosi who were holding such position as a birth right and would remain as dikgosi even when their contracts had expired.
Another argument was whether a kgosi must cease to serve the people because their contract has expired and awaiting renewal.
“This is a culture that we must strongly do away with. We own up to our mistakes and I can confirm that we have since rectified the challenge,” she said.
In response, Mr Mmolotsi expressed concern that government funds were being used to pay people not in the employ.
“How do you justify paying someone whose contract has expired. There is no authority that you can cite to support your decision. There is nothing that you can say to defend yourselves,” he said.
Taking into account that the Auditor General’s report had revealed that the nine cases of dikgosi were among the 57 that were identified at the ministry, he said it was evident that there could be more ghost employees in the ministry.
Mr Mmolotsi said the ministry must find ways of recovering the public funds that were lost through over payments.
He said PAC was a forum that advocated for quality public service and service delivery done timely and within budget.
“The way you act is bound to deplete government resources,” he said.
Ms Mogapi acknowledged that the ministry had operational lapses to deal with. She added that some cases of overpayments were of officers who absconded from work while some were of those who had died during the course of the month, only for their salaries to be fully credited month end.
PAC also wanted to establish how the ministry had budgeted P550 000 to cover for official telephone bills, only for the financial year to end with a telephone bill of P1.7 million.
Ms Mogapi said the projected amount of P550 000 was informed by past records.
In another case, the ministry appealed to the PAC to write-off advanced salary payment alleged to have been received by a ghost employee, because efforts to recover the money had proved futile as the said officer appeared to be non-traceable.
Mr Mmolotsi said PAC would not rule out the possibility of the ministry having more ghost employees on their payroll yet to be discovered, adding that the ministry was haunted by cases of exorbitant cost overruns, a clear challenge of project monitoring, supervision as such contracts could have been terminated before squandering millions of public funds.
One of the notable projects, he said was of a road gravelling which was projected to cost P4 million only for the project to end up gobbling more than P27 million of government funds.
“They do so with the knowledge that no action will be taken against them. We lose billions of monies through such deliberate errors. PAC advocates for action to be action against such acts,” he said.
Mr Mmolotsi said in some countries, PAC committees’ membership was extended to law enforcement officers and action was taken against officers who were found wanting in terms of explaining gross misuse and expenditure.
He said government was robbed millions through dubious decisions.
PAC member, Mr Tumisang Mangwegape-Healy said he was concerned that the ministry never learnt from past experiences where government had lost billions of funds as a result of sky rocketing cost escalations.
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