Aviation school ordered to pay P44m
Innocent Selatlhwa | Monday February 27, 2023 06:00
Following the establishment of the Specialised Audit Division, the Auditor General Pulane Letebele has come to a conclusion that it is Seduke who is due to refund DTEF the sum of P44,034,733.50.
This is contained in the latest Auditor General’s report for the financial year ended March 2021. The report is dated January 9, 2023. At the heart of the dispute between IAS and DTEF is incomplete training contract and the amount of money paid for its delivery. IAS is alleged to have made an invoicing error resulting in them having to deliver more training hours, compared to what was initially invoiced.
Records show that IAS has been pleading for the error to be corrected, in line with the terms stated on its invoices. On the other hand, a letter authored by former Minister of Tertiary Education permanent secretary on December 5, 2018, declares a rigid position that denies the academy the right to apply invoice correction, on the basis that the invoiced training hours are contractually fixed at 200 hours and therefore a fixed price and duration. According to court papers, IAS through their attorneys, Modimo & Associates took the matter to court accusing the tertiary ministry and Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA) of breach of contract after they transferred students to aviation schools in South Africa.
IAS is demanding that they be paid P18,770,000.00 for the breach of contract and the resultant damages instigated against them. “Specialised Audit was engaged to conduct an audit investigation on payments made to a local aviation company. The government of Botswana, through the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, DTEF, sponsored students to pursue aviation training at this company. “The overarching aim of the audit was to establish the DTEF’s position with regard to an alleged P18 million debt.
The request was made in terms of Section 14 (1) (b) of the Public Audit Act, 2012. After careful assessment and analysis of the financial transactions between the company and DTEF, I concluded that the company should refund DTEF P44,034,733.50,” Letebele wrote According to Letebele, in response to the audit recommendations, the management of DTEF has undertaken to engage the Attorney General to recover the funds from the company. According to Letebele, the Specialised Audit Division was established in late 2018 and became operational in 2019.
She states that the need for the establishment of this Division was necessitated by a number of factors including the highly publicised financial scandals reported, increase in occupational fraud, corruption and other financially motivated crimes that have a bearing on the performance and government ability to deliver on its mandate.
“It was established to specifically initiate and undertake investigative and forensic audits where there is suspicion of fraud or mismanagement in any public institution,” she stated. When delivering her historic Budget Speech in February 2022, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development (MFED), Peggy Serame announced the immediate transfer of the Tertiary Education Financing (TEF) vote under DTEF to her ministry. Serame said the transfer was aimed at ensuring that the vote is managed prudently for long-term sustainability. “MFED has contracted an accounting firm to undertake a special audit on the TEF activities for the last 10 financial years.
The work entails an in-depth examination of the management of the tertiary education financing, awarding of sponsorships, reasonability of tuition fee levels charged by tertiary institutions, allocation of students to tertiary institutions and examination of issues around payment of tuition fees and allowances,” she said.