SANDF’s budget split leads to poor finances, say unions

DEFENCE force unions want the department to hire skilled financial experts to fix the struggling institution, which has incurred more than R600million in irregular expenditure.

The SA National Defence Union (Sandu) and SA Security Forces Union (Sasfu) said yesterday it cannot be business as usual when the department is sinking into financial crisis.

Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu said the books of the department, which has a budget of more than R48billion, were in a shambles because the department did not provide proof of records on R4.9bn in commitments.

Makwetu said in some instances Treasury regulations were flouted in procurement processes, leading to irregular expenditure.

“The management did not implement proper record-keeping in a timely manner to ensure that complete, relevant and accurate information was accessible and available to support financial and performance reporting,” said Makwetu.

“The management did not prepare regular, accurate and complete financial and performance reports that are always supported and evidenced by reliable information.

“Controls over daily and monthly processing and reconciling of transactions were not fully implemented,” said Makwetu.

He said the reason there was irregular expenditure of more than R600m was because of non-compliance with supply chain management processes.

The unions said the department would not have suffered R631m in irregular expenditure if it had qualified people to run its finances.

Pikkie Greeff of Sandu said the department decentralised its functions to the units, and those soldiers did not have the skills to manage finances.

Nomashado Mavuso of Sasfu said a lack of financial skills was hampering the department doing business.

The Department of Defence did not respond to questions at the time of going to press.

Greeff said over the past 15 years the department decentralised its functions to the units at local levels.

“In the 1990s and early 2000s, the defence force budget was centralised, but later it was decentralised.

“You find a unit managing its budget, which is a problem.

“It needs to be put through a centralised system.

“A lot of stuff is decentralised and these soldiers joined the army to be soldiers, not financial experts,” said Greeff.

He said the department needed to hire financial experts to head functions requiring financial management.

Mavuso said they were concerned about the financial management situation in the department. She agreed with Greeff that the department needed to get people with the requisite skills to manage its finances.

This would need to happen quickly for the department to get back on its feet. |