25 May 2014

The Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) is scheduled to re-appear before the 52nd Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting after giving a ‘substandard’ report when appearing before the meeting of the 10th Parliament Committee, on Friday May 23.

The PAC resolved that DCEC director general, Ms Rose Seretse should go back, work on her report and resubmit as there were a lot of gaps in it. Member of the PAC and Shoshong MP, Mr Phillip Makgalemele suggested that given the level of the missing information in DCEC’s report, Ms Seretse be ordered to go back and work on her report and resubmit. He advised DCEC director general to seek assistant from PAC.

PAC chairperson, Mr Nehemiah Modubule was not happy with the report upon noticing that there was a change of style of reporting as compared to the previous reports.

He urged Ms Seretse to insure that she follows the set standards when compiling her report to avoid errors and also submit as much evidence as possible to avoid confusion.

He said PAC did not accept sub-ledgers as evidence although they were included in the report. 

Therefore, Mr Modubule concurred that the director general should go back and work on her report and re-appear before PAC.

Since DCEC has a PAC desk officer sitting in PAC meetings, Mr Modubule said Ms Seretse ‘should not be having such a report’. Another PAC member and Tswapong North MP, Mr Prince Maele said DCEC did not do as it  usually does.

He noticed a lot of gaps in the report that needed to be addressed.

This, Mr Maele said ‘showed that the report was done at the eleventh hour and was rushed’.

Ms Seretse admitted that she also realised that her report was substandard said she would go back and do as she was advised.

Meanwhile, PAC member and Tati East MP, Mr Samson Guma, commended the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism permanent secretary, Mr Neil Fitt and his officers for their effort after they presented their ministry’s report. Mr Guma said although there were some areas that needed to be attended to, the team did a good job.

The PAC chairperson however advised Mr Fitt to ensure that his ministry worked hard on how it spends money on its development budget. He said it was worrisome for a large sum of money not to be utilised by the end of a financial year, especially that some projects were not done. “You should liaise with other ministries and learn how they do it,” he advised.BENDS