The Department of Defence (DoD) accounted for the vast majority of irregular expenditure recorded by the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) over the last five years, at R14.39 billion.
The AGSA made this known during a briefing to the Standing Committee on Appropriations (SCOA) on Tuesday 22 October. Cumulative irregular expenditure by 38 government departments over the last five years amounted to R50.65 billion, with the DoD accounting for nearly triple that of the next worse offender, the Department of Basic Education (R6.89 billion).
For 2018/19 the DoD recorded R3.5 billion of irregular expenditure, followed by R2.8 billion the next year, R2.4 billion the year after, R4.7 billion in 2021/22, and R741 million in 2022/23.
This is arising from the compensation of employees bill reaching a total of R10.1 billion and R4.9 billion coming from within the procurement environment and logistics division.
Due to the underfunding of the wage bill (compensation of employees), the DoD has recorded R2.6 billion in unauthorised expenditure this year alone, set to top R5.6 billion by the end of the 2023/24 financial year.
The DoD Audit Committee earlier this year observed that with irregular expenditure, “management has failed to prevent or clear irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure balances, with failing investigations, and ineffective consequence management.”
Meanwhile, the AGSA found that the Department of Correctional Services was responsible for R3.77 billion in irregular expenditure and the Police Department R2 billion over the last five years.
When it comes to fruitless and wasteful expenditure, the Department of Defence fared better, accumulating only R75 million over the last five years. This is better than Police (R208 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure) and the Department of Correctional Services (R81 million).
Denel recorded R163 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure over the last five years and R1.538 billion in irregular expenditure.
