During a special full council to discuss the audit report that was presented by the Finance and General Purposes chairperson, Amogelang Mojuta, Town Clerk Itireleng Phatshwane explained that his office is busy trying to locate the lawyer and stated that the lawyer was incorrectly paid the money because she was not employed as an expatriate but had, instead, applied for the post and was appointed in Selebi-Phikwe.

He said the money that the lawyer was paid is only paid to expatriates who are recruited from their countries.

“She was wrongly given the money and the council will trace her so that she can reimburse the money,” said Phatshwane.

Phatshwane also put it before the council that the officer who authorised the payment would also have to pay back the money.

He stated that even the lawyer was wrong to have accepted the money knowing, as she did, that the money was not due to her. Phatshwane said all this in response to questions from Councillor Kosy Mashaba, who wanted to know the mechanisms that the council would use to locate the Kenyan lawyer who, allegedly, has since left the country. Mashaba said that it was obvious that the lawyer had already spent the money and doubted the possibility of recovering the money from her.

The audit report also recommended that the council investigated the origins of the sewerage debtor’s figure that amounts to P319, 764.70. It further directed that the council corrects the misallocation of sewerage fees of P79, 203.00 to sanitation debtors and promptly remit PAYE deductions from staff salaries to the Botswana Savings Bank.

The report also advised council not to mix credits and debits so that a true picture of how much imprest is outstanding can be known. Further to that, council was also advised to investigate credit balances amounting to P5, 313.78 in the imprest account and correct them by either reimbursement or seeking write offs, if they could not trace them. Old credit balances were also required to be investigated since they continued to appear in the financial statements.

The councillors called for serious action on drawers of dishonoured cheques and recommended reporting such people to the police in accordance with accounting instructions.

On the general fund, the audit report indicated that the council earned a surplus during the year and this represented a decrease from the preceding year’s surplus. However, after adjusting for prior years’ transactions, the general fund remained with a balance of P24, 037 631.32.

According to the report, it was observed that neither a provision was made for the shortfall nor a note included in the treasurer’s report to explain why a lower figure was received.

The council approved all the recommendations for the year ended March 2004 and Mojuta said in an interview that this was done with the understanding that the recommendations would be fulfilled.