LIVE FEED: State Capture Inquiry - February 2, 2021

Johannesburg - The Zondo commission will continue to hear evidence related to parliamentary oversight, today.

Zukiswa Rantho, the former chairperson of the portfolio committee on public enterprises, is expected to take the stand.

On Monday, the former chairperson of Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), Themba Godi, painted a grim picture of the legislature’s inability to ensure accountability of the executive over malfeasance and financial mismanagement with the government.

Godi took the stand before the Commission of inquiry into State Capture, chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, as it dealt with parliamentary oversight evidence.

WATCH FEED HERE

Godi said most Scopa resolutions dealing with wrongdoing had recommended action against officials who were involved, but that that hardly ever took place.

“How then do you get things right if there are no consequences for wrongdoing? I am talking about accounting officers in the first instance, but also the ministers because they get reports and you find that there is persistent non-compliance,” he said.

He also maintained that people implicated in wrongdoing were allowed to resign from one department and move to another one without punitive measures against them.

“That sense of impunity is what emboldened the looters to continue as if they had a democratic right,” he said.

Godi, who had led Scopa for 13 years, further highlighted that Parliament had, over the years, failed to track and monitor compliance by the executive with proposed corrective action, and that the legislature had also failed to adopt mechanisms aimed at compelling ministers to implement directives from MPs.

Scopa, he said, had gone through more than 200 annual audit reports of government departments and state-owned entities, with many of them showing poor financial controls and malfeasance. Those had hardly improved despite recommended directives to correct wrongs.

He said they included “disturbingly high cases“ of unauthorised, irregular, and fruitless and wasteful expenditure and other material non-compliance.

“Our approach, as Scopa, was that we want accountability for every cent of public money, but when you have unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure being counted in billions of rand, surely for anyone who seeks to serve the public good, that should be worrisome?” said Godi.

Political Bureau

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 07:32:22 GMTSiviwe Feketha

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