Prasa admits failure to tackle irregular expenditure

PROBITY from the Standing Committee on Public Accounts pushed Prasa’s acting group CEO Collins Letsoalo to confess the agency lacked mechanisms to curb irregular expenditure.

In the Auditor-General’s consolidated audit outcomes for the 2015-16 financial year‚ Prasa was recorded as having incurred close to R14-billion in irregular expenditure “as a result of significant non-compliance with its own supply chain management policy and legislation”.

This makes Prasa the single largest contributor to irregular expenditure among all state-owned enterprises.

The board of Prasa was cordial as the standing committee interrogated their progress report on interventions into irregular expenditure.

When Scopa member for the DA David Ross grilled the board on whether they would admit that there was no attempt to prevent irregular expenditure at the agency‚ Letsoalo admitted that such systems were either non-existent or had collapsed.

“We must concede that there was a general collapse in controls in all areas of the business.

“Be it financial‚ administrative‚ human resources as well as other levels and in areas where they did exist they were inadequate‚” said Letsoalo.

Asked whether political meddling caused or worsened the problem‚ Letsoalo said between 2012 and 2014 there was a lack of consequence management at the agency‚ which had nothing to do with politics.

“Political oversight would not have known if irregular spend was being picked up in any event.

“There are a couple things we have done to ensure consequence management‚” he said.

Prasa chairman Popo Molefe told the committee that while the board was aware that it had contributed more than any other parastatal to irregular spend‚ it had incorporated methods to address breaches in procurement and supply chain rules. — TMG Digital/