Africa-Press – Eswatini. Under-Secretary (US), Schools in the Ministry of Education and Training, who is also former Ka-Boyce High School principal Lungelo Jonathan Nhlengetfwa is among school principals and individuals to be reported to the police and Anti-corruption Commission (ACC).
The former principal will be reported in connection with over E4 million unauthorised expenditure of school funds.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) recommended that since Nhlengetfwa could no longer be investigated by the ministry, the matter should be reported to the police and ACC for further investigation.
This was detailed in the PAC recommendations on the auditor general’s audit report on the use of funds in public schools for the financial year ended December 2018. The report was tabled in the the House of Assembly on Thursday, and is still subject to debate and adoption by House in the next sitting, scheduled for Wednesday.
Some of the expenditure questioned by the auditor general’s office included purchasing of meals from fast food outlets such as KFC and Galitos during school events, to name a few.
The Auditor General, Timothy Matsebula, reported that an amount of E4 095 334.59 was spent without authorisation by the school committee in the financial year ended December 2018.
Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Training Bheki Gama said, on inquiry, that Nhlengetfwa stated that all the expenditure had been approved by the school committee, but the minutes authorising the expenditure were not signed.
The PAC was not satisfied with the former principal’s response to the query, especially because some of the expenditure at the school raised eyebrows. “For instance, during speech day events at the school, the pupils would be given Kentucky Fried Chicken meals for lunch, the parents given meals from Galitos, while a catering company was hired for teachers and VIP guests,” read part of the report.
The PAC reported that this showed uneconomical use of funds, as the school spent almost E300 000 on food alone in the year 2018.
The committee further reported that there were other suspicious payments which could not be adequately addressed by the former principal such as over E150 000, which was said to have been used to pay for a wall fence at the school.
“A bulk of the payments were also below E10 000.
This was attributed to the fact that the former principal, allegedly informed the school committee that the ministry had authorised him to only seek the school committee’s authority for expenditure above E10 000,” reported the committee.
The PAC recommended that since the immediate former principal was now the Under Secretary – Schools Manager, the ministry could not investigate him therefore, the controlling officer was urged to refer the matter of this expenditure amounting to E4 095 334.59 to the police and anti-corruption commission within seven days after adoption of the report.
Thereafter, he should quarterly update the committee on progress of the investigations.
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