Gigaba to expose those responsible for ghost IFMS project
FINANCE Minister Malusi Gigaba has promised to crack down on those responsible for wasting R1bn in the National Treasury on an Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) that was never implemented.
Gigaba told the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) yesterday, that a forensic investigation into the IT contract, on which R1bn was spent, had been launched.
National Treasury initiated the IFMS project in 2005 and spent R1bn on the first phase alone. Another R1.2bn was spent during the second phase of the project.
National Treasury Director-General Dondo Mogajane earlier told Scopa a total of R4.3bn was budgeted for the IFMS project.
Out of that R4.3bn, an amount of R2.2bn had allegedly been used over the past few years.
MPs complained that in 10 years National Treasury did not get value for money despite large sums being spent on the IT system.
Gigaba said he acknowledged the failure of internal controls to pick up problems in the project.
He said the problems were discovered by Treasury’s internal audit committee.
“I am certainly giving my attention to the report and issues raised,” said Gigaba.
He said payments on the IFMS project had been suspended.
IFMS was supposed to modernise the government’s IT system across departments.
Gigaba said they would now appoint a person to be directly in charge of the IFMS project in the Treasury.
“We will ensure the forensic investigation is instituted to get to the bottom of the report. It is our intention to get to the bottom of this matter. There is no doubt about it. There was clearly a failure of internal controls with regards to this,” said Gigaba.
He said despite problems associated with the project, the public must never lose trust in the National Treasury.
This was one lapse out of the many good things the Treasury has been doing, he said.
Earlier, ANC MP Nyami Booi questioned why the Treasury lost R1bn on a project intended to modernise the government’s IT system.
He said even on the second phase of the project there were no results.
He questioned how Treasury arrived at R1bn because there was no value for money and the project collapsed.
“Do you know how many houses could be built with R1bn,” he asked Treasury officials.
Mogajane said there was an investigation being conducted into the matter.
Scopa chairperson Themba Godi described the implementation of the IFMS project as “shambolic” and “shocking”.
He said the Treasury, whose job was to oversee proper expenditure in the government, was in the dock for wasting money on a project that never got off the ground.
Godi said even an internal audit found that the project costing was done informally.
He said the internal audit report also found that consultants were made to monitor themselves.
He called on Gigaba to take action against those responsible.
There should have been proper internal control at the Treasury during the implementation of the project, said Godi.