Africa-Press – Eswatini. Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Corporation, Thuli Dladla, has revealed that mismanagement of public funds was rife in embassies.
This was after it was revealed that the ministry was among a number of ministries categorised under the most wasteful in government.
This was during the debate of the ministry’s second quarter performance report yesterday.
Portfolio Committee Chairperson MP Sibusiso Scorpion Nxumalo pointed out that he recently requested the auditor general’s office to investigate how much in public funds was lost through corruption and mismanagement, monthly.
He said the ministry had been listed among the most wasteful spenders.
The minister said she once explained that managing foreign service personnel was a challenge and likened it to a parent having a child abroad where they did not know what they got up to when they woke up each morning.
She admitted that the challenges of mismanagement of funds were there.
“I once asked myself what was happening.
“There are instances where officials did something that shocked me as well. Umuntfu ente intfo ngeludlame, which begged the question why that was so,” said the minister.
Dladla further explained that previously the accountants stationed abroad were seemingly not qualified and wondered if they had the necessary qualifications.
The minister, however, stated that a majority of the accountants had been recalled and those who had since been deployed were interviewed and advised against mismanagement of public funds. She said she requested the foreign service department to periodically have virtual meetings with the accountants. Dladla said as much as the COVID-19 pandemic had claimed countless lives, there were also positives.
One of these positives was that virtual meetings could be held and the ministry did not have to wait for the embassies to be audited by the office of the attorney general before they discovered anomalies.
Challenges
“I personally instructed the principal accountant and principal secretary to periodically engage the accountants so they could timeously inform them of all the challenges they faced abroad and remind them of their responsibilities,” she said.
According to the minister, she discovered that some of the accountants were afraid of the ambassadors, hence the prevalence of the mismanagement of funds.
“I questioned why they allowed the ambassadors to bully them yet they all had clearly defined roles and responsibilities,” said Dladla, adding that the matter required a closed session where she could spill the beans and speak honestly about the challenges they faced as a ministry based on what she witnessed and heard when monitoring embassies.
The minister said she always prayed hard that the past challenges would not occur in future and history should not repeat itself.
She insisted that it was important for all civil servants to respect public funds because these were there to ensure that their jobs were simple and not to be mismanaged.
Dladla said the job of being an envoy was to market the country and attract investors and not to blatantly misuse the funds.
This, she said should also apply to national assets such as vehicles, which should not be abused.
She emphasised that it was not easy for the ministry to monitor the missions because they were out of proximity and they only got to find out about these issues too late.
The minister said during the recent trip, she also discovered some anomalies that shocked her because she thought all was well.
She said it was painful that the ministry was portrayed in a bad light but she was not surprised because she had witnessed it first-hand while in office.
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