The star Online
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Gauteng's controls and delivery come under heavy fire
November 29, 2006 Edition 2
Karyn Maughan
Gauteng Housing MEC Nomvula Mokonyane has slammed a legislature committee for finding that her department's finances are in a state of chaos.
And, in a heated hearing in the Gauteng Legislature yesterday, an irate Mokonyane also told a Democratic Alliance councillor who challenged her denials to "shut your mouth".
DA councillor Kate Lorimer incurred Mokonyane's wrath after she slated the department's delivery as "shameful".
She claimed, among other things, that the department had managed to deliver only 19% of its 7 200-house target in the Community Builder Programme, and built only 36 of 2 250 planned units for the Orlando East backyard shack upgrading programme.
Lorimer also criticised Mokonyane over a decision to scrap its waiting list for housing and use a "block allocation system".
"When are you going to let those on the waiting list know this, or is it easier to keep them all in the dark?," she asked.
"When will the MEC tell the 109 000 people who applied for housing in 1996 and 1997, and are still waiting for houses, that they are no longer going to be given houses in the order of the list?
"The people you serve are entitled to openness and honesty," she said.
It was Lorimer's disbelieving comments during Mokonyane's speech to the legislature, in which the MEC claimed that the department had accelerated its housing delivery, that saw Mokonyane repeatedly instructing the councillor to "shut up".
Mokonyane's department came under fire from both the legislature's oversight committee on housing and the Auditor-General, who gave her department a qualified audit and criticised its poor accounting practices.
But, while not taking issue with the Auditor-General's findings, Mokonyane lashed out at the damaging report given out by the oversight committee as creating the "certain impression that the Gauteng Department of Housing is in a shambles and also in a chaotic situation regarding its operations and management of public funds".
"We have noted the report and wish to place on record that there are serious unsubstantiated comments, misrepresentation of the facts, inconsistencies in presentation and form, coupled with uncertainty over the operations of the department," she said.
The committee stated that a review of the department's finances showed "extensive" Public Finance Management Act failings, but Mokonyane said there were "only three" such failings.
Mokonyane also denied the committee's findings that two of the department's major empowerment initiatives - the People Housing Process and the Community Builder Programme - were performing poorly.
In its qualified audit of the department's finances, the office of the Auditor-General also raised the following concerns:
nRecently released findings into an investigation into housing projects valued at R478- million - which resulted in a number of Housing Department employees being criminally charged - was not reflected in its financial statements. This, said the Auditor-General, was "due to management not being able to determine the value of the irregular, unauthorised, fruitless and wasteful expenditure";
Cash payments of R45-million could not be verified "because of lack of supporting documentation received from the service provider";
Documentation to explain the expenditure of more than R108-million could also not be provided;
The accuracy of the department's admission that it had financial commitments of R316-million could also not be verified.
"This was due to a lack of proper understanding of commitment by management," the Auditor-General's report stated