Cleaner gets government house, housing allowance

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M– A government employee has been enjoying staying in a government bedsitter while claiming housing allowance for a year now.

She claims housing allowance of E350 per month, which means she has undeservedly received about E4 200.

The woman was initially based at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade, but has since been posted to one of the vocational colleges as a cook.

The house she is occupying comes with free water and electricity as these bills are catered for by government.

She further enjoys these benefits of baking cakes and muffins which she sells around the institution.

The houses are the same with the ones that are normally rented out to people booked for training and workshops at the college, at a rate of E250 per night.

It was gathered that when they are not full, they are sometimes allocated to employees, especially those who work in the kitchen because they often report for duty early in the morning.

Currently, there are two more employees based at the college kitchen who are also occupying similar houses.

However, they are paying the rent of E45 per month and they are not getting any housing allowance from government.

Some employees of the college who were interviewed on the matter said, it was an old story that the parent ministry was made aware of last year.

“We raised this concern with the principal, but it turned out that he was on the woman’s side, for whatever reason.”

The employees, most of whom are aggrieved, said they reported the matter to the Director of

Cooperatives at the ministry because their institution was under her office.

“The director recommended that the matter was dealt with at institution level, despite that we had approached her because we were not satisfied with the manner in which it was handled by the principal,” they said.

The college principal said he was not mandated to discuss any issues with the media.

He referred questions ministry.

Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade Siboniso Nkambule said he was not aware of the matter.

He referred questions to the Commissioner of Cooperatives Nonhlanhla Mnisi.

Principal

to the

Mnisi said she was not aware of the matter, but the principal would be in a better position to discuss it. “This is an administrative issue and the principal is the one who allocates houses and makes a recommendation on who should get housing allowance,” she said.

She said the normal procedure was that a government employee was either allocated a house

The house occupied by the employee who is not paying any rentals yet she is also claiming housing allowance. House purposely obscured as the name of the civil servant has not been mentioned

or was receiving housing allowance. “No government employee should benefit both.”

The Auditor General (AG) Timothy Matsebula has always insisted that benefitting twice from government was unlawful.

“Further, General Order number A778 (1) states that it is only an officer who is not accommodated in a Government quarter, mission, company, community house, shall be eligible for payment of a housing allowance.”

He said the payment of housing allowance to employees who are

The Auditor General Timothy Matsebula has always insisted that benefitting twice from government was unlawful.

accommodated in a government house reflected weak internal controls and a poor monitoring system.

Recommend

In such cases Matsebula would recommend that the controlling officer should ensure that all amounts owed to Government were recovered promptly and also strengthen the payroll system of internal controls. “The unlawful housing allowance received, should be recovered with immediate effect in accordance with the financial and accounting instructions,” he said in a matter involving a teacher of Ngwane Central High School who had occupied a government house without paying.

In this school the AG noted that 85 per cent (23 out of 27) of the housed teachers were defaulting their monthly rentals. “The defaulted monthly rentals amounted to E31 438 dating from the 2011 to date. The monthly house rental for sharing a house was E13.00 and E26.00 for non-sharing house.”