Scopa lambastes Ezemvelo

THE lack of internal controls and chronic staff turnover were two of the problems crippling the operations of the embattled KZN Ezemvelo Wildlife.

Managers of the entity spoke openly about the extent of the challenges when they recently appeared before the provincial legislature’s watchdog, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa).

Ezemvelo’s accounting authority, Simiso Magagula, chief financial officer Darious Chitate and acting chief executive Ntsikelelo Dlulane appeared before the committee to address several concerns raised in the office of the Auditor General’s 2019-20 findings.

Committee members took the entity to task, saying it was in a dire state and, despite receiving large sums of government funding, there appeared to be no return on investments.

The office of the chief financial officer bore the brunt of the criticism, as it was accused of being incompetent and a source of the problems.

Committee members said, based on the findings by the AG, the authority made rudimentary mistakes during procurement processes.

It gave contracts to companies that did not have their tax affairs in order, failed to source three relevant quotes for procurement of goods and services valued under R500 000 in violation of Treasury regulations, and there was insufficient evidence that officials had been disciplined for this.

The entity was doing business with suppliers that had failed to declare their interests and others were prohibited from doing business with the state.

They also accused the entity of failing to see business opportunities due to the Covid-19 crisis, such as renting its buildings to the Department of Health for field hospitals.

The committee accused senior managers of appointing themselves to positions and usurping powers that were the reserve of the board. Since 2013, the organisation had incurred about R48.8 million in irregular expenditure.

DA committee member Francois Rodgers said the organisation was in a shambolic state and had not taken advantage of business opportunities.

“If you look at the Covid-19 crisis that we have been through, there was an ideal opportunity for Ezemvelo to make money.

“As a province, we spent R200 million on field hospitals – most of that was spent privately on hotels.

“When I asked the Department of Health why we did not spend the money on Ezemvelo and support our own, the response I got was that the facilities were not up to standard and were in a state of collapse.

“This entity could have got 60% of that R200m, which could have made a difference, but they did not,” he said.

IFP committee member Mtomuhle Khawula accused the management of being a “referee and player”, by implementing an organisational structure that benefited them.

“Because there is no board, they went ahead and appointed themselves to management positions. To me that sounds like fraud. They do not have these powers of appointing people to positions.”

ANC committee member Sfiso Sonjica said it appeared that governance in the institution did not exist.

Magagula said one of his priorities was to address the problems in the office of the chief financial officer and, there were other issues that the institution could swiftly deal with.

“Internal controls – I do not think we have much of it in Ezemvelo. By the time a transaction has taken place and is discovered, it is too late.

“But if you have strong internal controls within the office of the chief financial officer, some of the transactions will not be processed because they are picked up as irregular,” he said.