Taps tightened, but millions flow through leaks
Mbongeni Mguni | Friday April 8, 2016 15:10
In Geneva, an officer in the country’s embassy there charges their child’s school fees of P1.4 million per annum to government and after querying, the Auditor General is told the school is special and “has always been used by the mission over the years”.
In Tsabong, an officer employed as a revenue collector in the Department of Veterinary Services goes AWOL for 39 days, during which it is discovered he has not accounted for P262,829.
Officials say the monies will be recovered from the officer’s terminal benefits, but the Auditor General notes that it is unlikely these will meet the losses.
All over the country, the public finance management system frequently springs leaks, often resulting in losses of small amounts, rarely exceeding a million pula. The public sector is the pipeline between the budget and service delivery for taxpayers, but it is also a machine, requiring funding of its own to operate and deliver on its mandate.
These funds for the operation of the public service are provided for under recurrent budget, which for 2016 to 2017 was pegged at P37 billion.
While the leaks within the machine involve amounts far smaller than the overall recurrent budget, when combined, the losses vex the Auditor General, going against sound budget and coming at a time when the Finance Ministry is tightening expenditure and running a deficit.
The Auditor General’s report indicates that apart from these brazen instances of abuse, the trend where public servants neglect to pay back their commitments to the Treasury, is rising.
Civil servants receive advances and extensions for travel and private telephones and in many cases, take advantage of system inefficiencies or flexibilities, to avoid paying these back to the national purse.
Accounting officers also appear reluctant to collect the arrears owed and often allow them to drag from one year to the next, until some become ‘unrecoverable’.
At the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, workers owed P41,405 in private telephone calls arrears in 2014 of which amount, only 13 percent was collected in 2015. Even within the Office of the Auditor General, the private telephone call issue persists.
By March 31, 2015, workers in the Office of the Auditor General owed P19,803 in private telephone bill arrears, defying a General Order that slaps a 10 percent charge on all outstanding bills.
“The General Order states that officers shall pay promptly for their private calls immediately on receipt of the telephone accounts, failing which deductions should be made from the salaries of the officers concerned, plus a 10 percent surcharge.
“The office has not performed well with regard to recoveries of telephone charges for private usage,” the Auditor General conceded.
However, one of the Auditor General’s biggest headaches is the issue of travel imprests or the allowances paid to public servants for official trips. For the 2015 financial year, the Auditor General found a balance of P14 million in outstanding travel imprests.
The amounts are accountable, meaning whatever is not accounted for has to be refunded by the officer, by way of a deduction from salary.
On paper, the system is simple. Sign for the allowance, leave on the trip, account when you return and pay back whatever you cannot account for.
In practice however, the system is fraught with difficulties and inefficiencies. Officers promise to account, accounting officers make concessions, reconciliations are delayed and the final ledger to the ministry often does not reflect what is happening on the ground. In some cases, officers say they account for their expenses and get deducted, but these are not reflected on the reconciliations sent to the ministry.
Often the overdue travel imprests run across financial years and together with other allowances, represent an irritating expenditure item in central and local governments’ recurrent budgets.
“While it is accepted that as part of normal government business, there will always be a balance of outstanding travelling imprests at any point in time, there has however always been a concern over those (that) had not been retired and balances became dormant in the accounts,” the Auditor General’s report reads.
“The Public Accounts Committee has expressed concern over the years, when the accounting officers have failed to take decisive action to bring these matters under proper control and operate these accounts strictly in accordance with the laid down rules, which require summary recoveries from the salaries of officers who fail to account for these cash advances.”
Senior officials, up to the level of director and beyond, are reportedly the main culprits in the issue of travel imprests.
A serving public officer says while accounting officers are tough on junior officers and unyielding in their demands around the travel imprest, they are toothless in the face of powerful bosses, who also use their experience to navigate the accountability demands of the system.
“No one can tell them what to do. They can sit on those receipts for travel imprests or promise to account and the accounting officers don’t have power. “The senior officers have power. They may even get transferred to a different department without retiring their imprests.
“When it comes to juniors, the accounting officers don’t negotiate. They just lay down the rules,” the officer says.
The leaks within the machine seem destined to persist, particularly if the senior officials are the perpetrators. The Auditor General’s attempts may continue to be in vain.