Parliament’s financials ‘are out of order’

CAPE TOWN — Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu has taken Parliament to task over its latest financial report, which contains material errors, as well as misstatements on its performance on public participation and international engagements.

The report will be subject to the scrutiny of MPs on Friday after tabling. Members informed Secretary to Parliament Gengezi Mgidlana that the legislature’s 2015-16 annual report needed to be tabled in line with the Financial Management of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act.

The act stipulates that Parliament and provincial legislatures should table their budgets within a strict timeframe to allow the Treasury and the legislatures an opportunity to scrutinise and comment on the reports.

However, Mgidlana has reportedly insisted that this clause in the act did not apply to Parliament, but to provincial legislatures only.

Opposition MPs are also keen to see if Mgidlana paid any further money to his own office or towards his own travel expenses.

This follows reports of his taste for the finer things in life, such as R130,000 luxury hotel stays with his wife and R4,700 chauffeur services at Parliament’s expense. He is reported to have stayed at the Michelangelo Towers in Sandton for R7,250 per night.

According to the annual report, Mgidlana’s basic salary for the financial year ending March 2016 stands at R2.5m. Figures for the financial year to March 2015 show that Mgidlana took home a basic salary of R794,000 per year.

Makwetu said while the financial statements from Parliament were a fair reflection of the year in question, he drew attention to the restatement of corresponding figures for the year to March 2015 “as a result of errors discovered during the 2015-16 financial year”.

Although he did not raise any material findings on the usefulness and reliability of reported performance information, he sought to bring attention to Parliament’s performance regarding some of its planned targets for the year.

“These material misstatements were on the reported performance information of programme 3: public participation and international engagements. As management subsequently corrected the misstatements, I did not raise any material findings on the usefulness and reliability of the reported performance information,” he said.

DA chief whip John Steenhuisen said Parliament needed to table its financial statements on a monthly basis to allow members to hold the institution to account.

“The Financial Management of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act says the report should be tabled within 15 days of the report’s release,” Steenhuisen said.

The secretary of Parliament disputed this and said Parliament was not bound by the legislation.

Steenhuisen said he had written to the auditor-general for clarity, and the auditor-general “came back and asked us to comply”.

Steenhuisen said the misstatements pointed out by Makwetu were potentially serious, as they might have stemmed from vague performance targets, which could be put in place to “downplay underperformance”.

ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu and EFF acting spokesman Fana Mokoena could not be reached for comment.