Treasury clean – ‘shoddy’ report

A forensic investigation by Deloitte found no wrongdoing by the National Treasury team working on the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS).

But it concluded a lack of human resources was partly to blame for adverse internal audit findings, a source in the department said yesterday.

“They found nothing wrong, nobody stole money,” the source said, adding that the audit firm’s investigation included scrutiny of the IFMS2 project team’s computers and lifestyles and the outcome had proven a political disappointment to National Treasury’s new leadership.

“They raised the issue that a team this small could not have been expected to handle a project of this scope … This report is being rejected because it did not find what people wanted it to find.”

The much-delayed delivery of the new finance management system turned into a political storm this week after Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, pictured, rejected the Deloitte report as “shoddy” and called for the firm to be reported to the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA).

On Tuesday, Gigaba and top National Treasury representatives appeared before parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) to face questions about the project that had yet to deliver a workable payment system and an internal audit of work done in 2015 yielded 54 findings, most carrying a high risk warning.

The director-general of finance, Dondo Mogajane, told Scopa he had on August 7 instructed that no further payments be made in relation to the IMFS.

Mogajane said he had also ordered the project management office to be restructured after learning that it had a staff complement of only five people, one of whom worked part-time.

It was “very worrying” that a critical project was so understaffed, he said.

But the issue rapidly turned into a political football as the ANC Women’s League weighed in with a call for it to be investigated as an instance of state capture. – ANA

This report is being rejected because it did not find what people wanted it to find.

Source National Treasury