The Department of Water and Sanitation’s Mzimvubu project, which is behind schedule and has ballooning costs, was symptomatic of the maladministration in the department, Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu said on Thursday.
He was addressing the portfolio committee on water and sanitation, providing an update on what was happening with the department’s 2016-17 audit outcomes, which it has disputed.
The water and sanitation department is one of a few departments that have taken issue with the auditor-general’s reports into their finances.
Makwetu said the department was suffering from financial constraints and delivery delays on projects as some projects had doubled in cost before they had even been completed.
The Mzimvubu project in the Eastern Cape was identified as being among these. The department had previously sought R20bn against an initial budget of R14bn, even though only R153m had been spent.
"The contractor procurement, site establishment and commencement of the construction were not achieved.
"The minister has since issued a directive that the project be implemented by the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority in terms of section 103 of the National Water Act," Makwetu told the committee.
The department’s interventions aimed at cleaning up its shambolic financial state fell apart and were not enough to achieve a clean audit.
Makwetu gave the department a qualified audit opinion in the 2016-17 financial year.
The department incurred the highest irregular as well as fruitless and wasteful expenditure of any department in the previous financial year.
Department spokesman Sputnik Ratau told Business Day the department would refer to the Treasury regarding the Mzimvubu project for direction on the way forward. "The minister is of the view that the department will take a way forward on how the project should be delivered.
"We have always been consistent that it will be concluded in terms of the law, whether that means the Treasury says we go for open tender or get the Chinese to deliver it. We will follow Treasury’s lead," said Ratau.
He said discussions with the auditor-general on the department’s financial report were continuing and the department had no intention of challenging Makwetu’s observations in court.
According to sources, minister Nomvula Mokonyane has been dead set on giving work to specific suppliers without going through open tender processes, and even lobbied for former minister of finance Pravin Gordhan’s dismissal to this end.
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