Money down the toi­let at depart­ment…

Cape Times - - NEWS - May­i­bongwe Maqhina

A to­tal of 1 961 em­ploy­ees pock­eted R30.4m in per­for­mance bonuses

THE Wa­ter and San­i­ta­tion Depart­ment has paid out R30 mil­lion in bonuses to its of­fi­cials in the 2016-17 fi­nan­cial year de­spite poorly manag­ing its fi­nances.

This came to light yes­ter­day in a par­lia­men­tary re­ply from min­is­ter Nomvula Mokonyane to a writ­ten ques­tion by the DA’s Anchen Dreyer who asked for the to­tal amount paid out in bonuses to em­ploy­ees in her depart­ment and a de­tailed break­down of the bonus paid out to each em­ployee at each salary level.

Mokonyane said a to­tal of 1 961 em­ploy­ees pock­eted R30 496 693 in per­for­mance bonuses.

Two of­fi­cials in man­age­ment ser­vice the se­nior (lev­els 13 and 14) pock­eted R58 092.84 and R69 069.60 re­spec­tively in bonuses and the rest was shared among other em­ploy­ees.

How­ever, Mokonyane de­fended the pay­ment of the per­for­mance bonuses, say­ing 1.5% of the to­tal pro­vi­sion for salaries was al­lo­cated to­wards per­for­mance re­views.

“This reg­u­la­tion is pro­vided for by the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Ser­vice and Ad­min­is­tra­tion. My depart­ment has com­plied with the reg­u­la­tion and a to­tal of 1 961 em­ploy­ees qual­i­fied for per­for­mance bonuses,” Mokonyane said.

Of­fi­cials in the depart­ment seem des­tined for yet an­other wind­fall.

“Per­for­mance re­wards for the 2017-18 fi­nan­cial year have not been fi­nalised, as the fi­nan­cial year ends in March 2018,” Mokonyane added.

She was re­spond­ing to an­other writ­ten ques­tion re­gard­ing the to­tal es­ti­mated amount to be paid out in bonuses to em­ploy­ees in her depart­ment in the 2017-18 fi­nan­cial year.

The pay­ment of the bonuses takes place against the back­ground of a depart­ment that over­spent its bud­get by R110.8m in 2016-17.

“This is as a re­sult of net loss of R89m, an over­draft of R191m, and unau­tho­rised ex­pen­di­ture of R406m by the depart­ment for the pe­riod un­der re­view,” the port­fo­lio com­mit­tee said.

In a bud­get re­view and rec­om­men­da­tions re­port tabled yes­ter­day, the com­mit­tee said the depart­ment’s li­a­bil­i­ties ex­ceeded its as­sets by R454m.

Au­di­tor-gen­eral Kimi Mak­wetu made damn­ing find­ings in his re­port when he au­dited the depart­ment.

The de­part­men­tal head, Dan Mashitisho, is still on sus­pen­sion. It in­curred R4.1 bil­lion in ir­reg­u­lar ex­pen­di­ture on im­ple­ment­ing agents that did not com­ply with ten­der pro­ce­dures.

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