The SABC has racked up billions in irregular expenditure, with the Auditor-General calling for more consequences against officials.

The AG’s office yesterday briefed Parliament’s Scopa on the annual reports and financial statements of state entities, reports EWN.

Andries Sekgetho from the AG’s office said the SABC was not successful in achieving the correct audit outcome due to irregular expenditure. He said this was because of a failure to include irregular expenditure in the notes to the company’s consolidated and separate financial statements in prior years.

‘The irregular expenditure has been quite a significant problem with the institution and at some point reporting approximately R5bn worth of irregular expenditure.’

He said the SABC had also not been able to ensure officials faced consequences.

‘When we come in and we assess a year later, in the absence of having all these supporting documents to be able to deal effectively with an opening balance of irregular expenditure, we are also not able then to enforce consequence management processes.’ 

Full EWN report

The Public Works & Infrastructure Department has suffered seven ‘material irregularities’ which cost the state R43.3m from 2019 to date, reports TimesLIVE.

The irregularities include: ‘unfair procurement process’ for the controversial Beitbridge border fence project of more than R17m; overpayment on buildings occupied by the Rural Development Department, which cost R10m; and spending on state funerals in excess of the contract amounts, which cost more than R8m.

This was revealed by the office of the AG yesterday in its Scopa presentation.

Officials said the department’s audit outcomes had not improved over the past five years.

They said the lack of improvement is attributable to management’s inability to implement proper record keeping controls in a timely manner to ensure that complete, relevant and accurate information is accessible and available to support financial and performance reporting.

Full TimesLIVE report