Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke.
Image: Thobile Mathonsi, Independent Newspapers.
HIGH vacancy rates, slow progress to deal with historic irregular expenditure and instability in leadership were among the key issues highlighted as plaguing the State Information and Technology Agency (SITA), according to the Auditor-General (AG).
The AG on Tuesday briefed the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) around its damning findings into the inefficiencies of SITA.
SITA has been under fire since it received another disclaimer audit opinion from AG Tsakani Maluleke. A disclaimer outcome means that the same challenges were found as those with qualified opinions but, in addition, the entity could not provide the AG with evidence for most of the amounts and disclosures reported in the financial statements.
On top of the disclaimer outcome, SITA is also being investigated by the Public Protector after a member of the public flagged allegations concerning the irregular appointment of a former director.
The AG noted that SITA audit outcomes had previously been qualified, for several years, where recommendations were provided to senior management to rectify the weaknesses identified during the audits.
“Disclaimer of opinion on the audit outcomes and prior year’s qualifications means that key role players within the SITA accountability ecosystem have failed to provide credible financial reports that are supported by reliable information. SITA environment produced financial statements that cannot be relied upon as they are not supported by full and proper records of the financial affairs of the public entity in terms of the Public Finance Management Act No.1 of 1999 (PFMA) s55(1)(a),” the AG noted.
While there was a decrease in the irregular expenditure incurred from R456.6 million in 2022-2023, the figures for the year under review were still over one hundred million at R112.5million for 2023-2024.
“Significant reduction in irregular expenditure is due to the majority of the irregular expenditure relates to expenditure incurred on ongoing multi-year contracts, and the multiyear contracts coming to an end in the current year. SITA needs to improve their bid and quotations evaluation processes to prevent incurring irregular expenditure as new irregular expenditure was identified in the current financial year.”
Among the key targets not achieved was certain service delivery targets, which emanate from the mandate of SITA relating to servicing government and not operational indicators. Some of these included the digitalisation of the court online solution, effective and efficient public service with modernised, automated and paperless processes, among others.
According to the AG, the overall compliance environment had also regressed in the year under review.
ActionSA MP, Alan David Beesley expressed concern over the massive turnover of leadership at the entity.
“(There is a) massively high turnover of five CEO's in five years, if we can’t get the leadership right at the board level we can't turn this organisation around. (The) vacancy rate of 60%, what is the cause of that. That could be contributing to massive crime we have in our country,” he said.
EFF MP Chumani Matiwane added: “What these audits demonstrate is that state owned entities are economically viable and the only reason they are failing is through the failure of government and management. Over these past five years, nothing really happened at SITA because there was no one to give strategic direction what is required to do in terms of its service delivery mandate.”
Questions were further raised around the continued viability of SITA, to which committee chairperson Songezo Siphiwo Zibi responded that it was a policy matter and the minister would be invited to account around these concerns.
Cape Times