Question NW2868 to the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture
26 October 2023 - NW2868
Mthethwa, Mr E to ask the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture
(a). What are the names of staff members who were found to have contravened funding policies such as: (i). Regulations contained in the public finance management act, act 1 of 1999, (ii). Treasury regulations and (iii). Regulations governing chartered public accountants, (b). Are the reasons that it has taken his department so long to charge the staff members when the cases were reported long before they left the department? (c). Action has been taken against persons who are still within his department. (d). Persuaded his department to accept the reports of the Cultural and Creative Industries Federation of South Africa (CCIFSA) while CCIFSA had not held its annual general meetings for the three years despite being funded annually?
Reply:
The Public Protector Report 95 of 2021/22 has specific financial irregularity findings, thus being:
Irregular expenditure resulting from the allocation of funds to the Trust/Foundation for litigation in which the Department is not a party to. Irregular expenditure resulting from failure to ensure the directive for utilisation of funds was in writing.
A) In the report of the Public Protector, there are no specified officials identified as directly responsible for the above irregularities but the Director-General of the Department who is key in the administrative approvals for the allocation of funds, supported by CFO who is key in processing approved payments to the Trust/Foundation following what was understood to be a lawful directive of the Minister albeit that he not issue a written directive.
(b) The Public Protector’s report was concluded only in February 2022 with no specific recommendations for officials to be ‘charged” but listing administrative procedures to be implemented in what the report refers to as a Remedial Action Plan to be implemented by the Department (Sections 8-9 of the report).
(c) With regard to officials who are still within his department, the report proposed that appropriate disciplinary steps be taken against any officials of the Department who may be found to have been involved in the financial irregularities referred to in the report. The root cause for the irregularities was analysed concluding that it was the interpretation of what is a lawful directive (verbal vs written) and the interpretation of the Cultural Promotion Act (CPA). This is confirmed in the affidavit from the Department to the Public Protector. Relevant officials in the chain of approvals to payment of funds referred to in the Public Protector’s report were to be notified about the recommendations in the form of the remedial action plan directive from the Public Protector to the department and applicable remedial actions to prevent a similar occurrence in the future. Against this background, the appropriate step in this case was a corrective action in the form of training without any charges levelled against these officials.
(d). The department funds CCIFSA for the purpose of strengthening the South African Cultural and Creative Industries Sector. Several training workshops have been conducted by CCIFSA to capacitate its management. CCIFSA hosted a policy conference in 2020. It is currently implementing conference resolutions. It has improved its operational systems as well as applying remedial actions recommended by the Department. Based on the above remedial actions and the operational improvement shown by CCIFSA, the department accepted their reports.
THANK YOU