Africa-Press – Lesotho. A consultant at the Lesotho Electricity Company (LEC
41) is being paid a whopping M60.5 million for a system that has failed to correctly capture the company’s financial records. This was disclosed during a hearing this week conducted by parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
The PAC chairperson, ’Machabana Lemphane-Letsie, heard that the wholly state-owned company has an unresolved variance of close to M28 million between VAT and financial statements. The committee grilled the LEC management on why the company has continued to pay SAP Consultants for the system that has failed to deliver.
Lemphane-Letsie wanted the LEC management to answer why the ledger and financial statements showed a liability of M33.8 million while VAT returns showed a liability of slightly over M6 million.
She also asked the LEC management to address her on the issue of sundry debtors who are included in the financial statements with a balance of M52.1 million while the debtors’ listing showed a balance of M90.5 million.
“There was no reconciliation of these amounts. Sufficient and appropriate audit evidence to substantiate the variance of M38 337 773 was not availed,” Lemphane-Letsie said.
The LEC Head of Finance, ’Makabelo Matsoso, said the query is now being addressed by her department. Matsoso said the SAP system has a problem with reconciliation after it was hacked and crippled.
She said the system works well in other areas “but cannot communicate with other department systems and also does not produce reports”. “The system works well in other modules like procurement, we just cannot extract the reports,” Matsoso said.
Matsoso said the system is a work in progress as it is currently used to procure and do other things. “Our board has instructed us to assess the system and the consultant is helping us, we are doing that now,” she said.
The LEC CEO, Mohlomi Seitlheko, said the board’s directive is clear that the system should be assessed whether it is for the benefit of the company or not.
“We think the problem here is not the system, but the consultant we are using as they lack resources,” Seitlheko said.
He said their agreement with the consultant expires in March next year. He also said they experienced a lot of challenges while trying to implement the project.
“A system installation is more like a journey and we were attacked by malware in the middle of the progress,” he said.
Lemphane-Letsie again asked the CEO to disclose how much they pay their consultant. “How long is your contract?” she asked. She asked the managers why they had continued working with the company when it was failing to deliver on its promises.
Matsoso said the M60.5 million includes the consultant support fee. She said they engaged the consultant to solve their challenges, adding that the support fee is M400 000 per month under a three-year contract.
“M8.7 million is for per quarter, M400 000 for support and we have paid M8.5 million to date.
Malware licence of M1.3 million, M24.1 million before malware attack, and other costs that have reached to the amount of up to M60.5 million,” she said.
A member of the committee Tefo Mapesela said the LEC head of internal audit, Thibello Nteso, was shot dead in the middle of an audit. “This shows that there is something fishy here,” Mapesela said.
“The auditor general must investigate further,” he said. He complained that the LEC “is corrupt from the management to the staff”.
“They take the opportunity that the system is malfunctioning and the systems cannot communicate,” he said.
He also said the LEC chief executive officers “walk like they own life in the streets”. “They do not understand that LEC belongs to us Basotho and not an individual, they must be arrested.
Mapesela called on the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) to “investigate the LEC as it does not reconcile purposely to steal money”.
“This has been happening for years, they must be arrested,” he said.
Another member of the committee ’Mamarame Matela said it does not make commercial sense that the consultant is paid M400 000 and a system M60.5 million yet they are malfunctioning.
“You have procured that system yourself, why can’t you cut it if it does not work for you?” Matela asked.
She said every consultant was supposed to have firewalls and protective systems to stop the loss of information during hacking. “Why don’t they even have a backup system so that information is not compromised?” she said. Matela said it is also unfair that the same company is given a support job. “They are getting paid even before their system is fully working.”
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