Education ministry woes far from over
Baboki Kayawe | Tuesday May 26, 2015 18:00
Challenges reign supreme in collections processes for MoESD, which intends to tighten tertiary sponsorship contracts as well as lobby for a legislation to enable information gathering from third parties. Currently, attempts to access information from banks on their clients that could assist in tracking beneficiaries continue to hit a snag, according to authorities at MoESD.
Permanent secretary in the education ministry, Richard Matlhare told PAC that they are facing challenges due to improper tracking systems, exacerbated by inadequate alumni information from higher education providers.
“If the contract or legislation would enable us to obtain information from third parties like the banks, this would enhance recovery,” Matlhare said. At the moment the ministry cannot reveal the exact amount owed to it, due to unavailability of an effective tracking mechanism, according to Matlhare. “We are challenged in the education system,” Matlhare said.
“Currently we can only provide estimates around how much we are owed in sponsorship loans.” At the moment, Tati East MP, Samson Moyo Guma has advised the ministry to urgently put a system in place to enable and quicken recoveries, since that money constituted a huge part of the ministry’s budget.
“As it is the biggest beneficiary has been private schools. I don’t think government and the public are benefiting due to lack of tracking processes,” Guma said. He maintained that even in the absence of a tracking system, the MoESD must refer to sponsorship records to sufficiently calculate these arrears. Overpayment of salaries has been identified as yet another source of budget headache within the ministry. The PAC heard that over P3.8 million is owed to government in overpayments though Oracle, hailed as an efficient and effective system, has been deployed to clean up the mess. Furthermore, Matlhare revealed that his ministry has commissioned a comprehensive audit into the Department of Tertiary Education Finance (DTEF), expected to run for three months. The audit, in its third week now looks into glaring incidents of corruption in the department among other concerns.
Selebi Phikwe West legislator, Keorapetse Dithapelo, a member of the PAC, urged Matlhare to hasten corruption curbing interventions, especially within the DTEF as the director general of the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime, Rose Seretse named this division as problematic in terms of corruption at last week’s PAC appearance.
Yet another audit is on the cards, according to Matlhare. He further explained that they had decided to focus on the entire ministry, and all the local senior secondary schools in addition to 50 of the 207 junior schools due to time and cost constrains. Commenting on plummeting national results, Matlhare said though there is nothing positive in terms of student performances, his ministry is facing multiple challenges, not a ‘crisis’.