Irregular expenditure feeds state capture
THE AUDITOR-GENERAL, Kimi Makwetu, is once again bemoaning the scourge of irregular and wasteful expenditure in our government.
Every year, Makwetu laments how government officials brazenly subvert tender rules to buy goods and services in violation of regulations.
His predecessor, Terence Nombembe, also used to decry the high levels of non-compliance with the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) when the state procured goods and services.
Last November, Makwetu uncovered irregular expenditure by government departments and state-owned enterprises had ballooned by over 55% in 2016/17 to more than R45billion. Irregular expenditure stood at R29bn in 2015/16. Yet, to this day, we don’t hear of officials being arrested or facing serious sanctions for irregular and wasteful expenditure.
This week we reported how state institutions and companies continue to rake in millions of rand in irregular and wasteful expenditure. The phenomenon has become so common it hardly solicits outrage from the nation. We have normalised irregular and wasteful expenditure.
As a consequence, unscrupulous politicians and businessmen get away with looting state coffers and hollowing out key institutions, including state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
At the heart of state capture is the subverting of tender rules to benefit a corrupt few. Irregular and wasteful expenditure – which includes inflating the price of tenders; not subjecting contracts to open bidding, among other things – is an instrument through which our resources are stolen.
It is encouraging, though, that the National Treasury has instructed all departments and state institutions to ensure that – from December 1 – wasteful officials are jailed, taken through a disciplinary process and forced to pay back the money.
For a long time corrupt and incompetent officials have acted with impunity in irregularly awarding tenders to their friends and associates, at the expense of the poor. The billions stolen through wasteful and irregular expenditure are robbing the poor of a better life.
If President Cyril Ramaphosa is serious about the new dawn, he has to deal decisively with irregular and wasteful expenditure, for it is an enabler of state capture.