Infrastructure:
With regard to the following statement made in his Department’s Annual Report for 2021/22: “The Department is in the process to investigate all Finance Linked Individual Subsidies (FLISP) payments to quantify the expenditure incurred dating back from 2016/2017, 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 to determine the full extent of the irregular expenditure incurred.”
- What is the update regarding this investigation, (b) what are the details of all the steps that have been initiated and concluded, (c) what are the details of the individuals doing the investigation and (d) what are the details of the irregular expenditure incurred in (i) 2016, (ii) 2017, (iii) 2018, (iv) 2019, (v) 2020, (vi) 2021 and (vii) 2022 to date?
(a)(b) The investigation is still in progress, with progress as follows:
The Department updated the applicable standard operating procedure in order to review historical and current subsidies approved. There are two teams from the Department’s Internal Control Unit (ICU) who are reviewing the subsidy files from the Subsidy Administration Directorate. Team 1 is reviewing the current financial year and Team 2 is reviewing the previous years. The ICU Verification team is also verifying the subsidy amounts before it is processed for payment in order to identify any possible irregular expenditure. The files are checked by a team of Senior State Accountants and the checked files are reviewed by an Assistant Director through two rounds of inspections.
For quarters 1 and 2 of the 2022/2023 financial year, 921 files have been reviewed and 41 differences were identified. The report to conclude quarter 2 will be available at the end of December 2022.
For the 2018/2019 financial year, the review is almost complete. Of a total of 465 subsidies, 310 files have been reviewed. A total 113 subsidies resulted in R2 124 499 irregular expenditure. Also, 23 subsidies reflected underpayments to the amount of R712 590. The review process for the outer years will commence, once the review process for the 2018/19 financial year is complete.
(c) 3 Assistant Directors, 4 Senior State Accountants and 1 Accounting Clerk
(d)(i)(ii)(iii)(vii) Still in progress.
(iv)(v)(vi) • 2019/2020 – R 5,200,531.35
• 2020/2021 – R 7,778,216.80
• 2021/2022 – R 9,000,105.44
