Makwetu flags Ipid’s performance measures as inadequate

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) has been given a qualified audit opinion by Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu, who raised concerns about the inaccurate capturing of its performance.

Ipid’s performance measures were inadequate and could lead to it presenting a misleading picture about how it was doing, Makwetu said in an explanatory note in the police watchdog’s audited 2016-17 financials.

Ipid incurred R3.2m in fruitless and wasteful expenditure related to an irregular appointment made while executive director Robert McBride was suspended.

McBride said the irregular expenditure stemmed from the irregular conclusions of investigations under former acting Ipid executive director Israel Kgamanyane, when McBride had been suspended. Makwetu said the Ipid leadership did not take effective steps to prevent R21m in irregular expenditure and R3.2m in fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

It had also failed to discipline officials responsible for the financial lapses.

“Leadership did not ensure adherence to the formal code of conduct as there were instances where management overrode controls relating to performance information reporting, which resulted in performance information reports being overstated,” said Makwetu.

McBride said the auditorgeneral had flagged R451,000 as part of the overall irregular expenditure but this had been declared and captured in Ipid’s registry and had arisen as a result of contract extensions.

However, Makwetu still found the declared irregular expenditure to be noncompliant with legislation. Also, much of the R2.5m in irregular expenditure had been disclosed.

“The department has in the year under review disclosed an amount of R3.2m in various payment transactions mainly on reorganisation of staff and appointment of the chief director of corporate services on a contractual basis when the incumbent was on suspension,” said McBride.

Ipid spokesman Moses Dlamini said on Tuesday there was evidence to suggest that Kgamanyane had concluded Ipid cases to create the impression the watchdog was performing better under him than it had under McBride.

“The former acting head wanted to give an impression that the directorate was performing better under him than under McBride and proceeded to close a number of cases prematurely. It looked like they closed more cases but the real situation was that they did special closure to override the system and create an impression,” said Dlamini.

He said McBride saw this and put together a task team to investigate the matter. One person involved had resigned and another was being disciplined. Investigations were continuing in various provinces.