Venson-Moitoi mum as AG is called in to mop up the mess

BAME PIET
Staff Writer | Tuesday April 13, 2010 00:00

 In an interview last week, the minister said that preliminary investigations found that the number of students on government sponsorship was far above the officially placed on such sponsorship. She said that the ministry recently inspected tertiary institutions locally and communicated with education attaches abroad after they discovered that the number of students far exceeded that on official record.

The ministry has re-registered all the students because of the discrepancies.  In some instances, she said, there were 15 students sponsored by government at a particular institution while the official number should be 10.

'We did not know what to do in such situations because we could not punish innocent students brought in by these officers,' she said. She added that the problem went beyond borders and such 'unofficial' students had their transport and allowances paid by the ministry. She added that the problem had been going on for years but would not divulge who was involved or how much money had been lost.

At least 23 officials of the Department of Student Placement and Welfare (DSPW) were interdicted indefinitely on February 19 after DCEC investigators found incidences of fraud and corruption in the department.

Venson-Moitoi said that the problem stemmed from poor control procedures and systems where an officer could just enter or delete data. She said that the Accountant General (AG) has been roped in to implement systems and procedures that could curb incidents of fraud and corruption. 'The Accountant General is going to strip the whole system, re-do it and put in place proper control systems,' the minister said.

There are reports that those officers who were cleared by investigators are to be recalled to work sometime this month but may be redeployed to other government departments. The minister would not deny or confirm such reports, but stated that her Permanent Secretary is going to meet with DCEC investigators to see how many officers are clean to go back to work and how many are to face criminal charges. She said that she expects to get another report from the investigators next week.