27 May 2014

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has expressed disappointment over negligence, poor records keeping and unaccountability by Ministry of Education and Skills Development.

The accounting officer, who is permanent secretary in the ministry, Mr Richard Matlhare and his subordinates were asked to reappear before the PAC to answer for inconsistencies that were shown in his report on May 26.

Chairperson of PAC, Mr Nehemiah Modubule said he was not impressed with the ministry's report as it had glaring gaps that showed that there was no due diligence in its preparation.

During Mr Matlhare’s the submissions, some reports containing outstanding debtors’ information were missing and in some instances, it was written that debts were to be verified.

There was also unavailability of evidence as to how much was owed to the loan book, many students owed student advance loans for purchasing of computers and officers’ travel imprest which had not been retired.

Mr Matlhare, who is relatively new to the ministry, also reported that it was difficult to trace records of student owing in the loan book especially those that did not return home after completion of their studies abroad.

Mr Matlhare further noted that the nightmare of records was also due to the fact that initially, huge numbers of students were sent abroad and the educational attachés were unable to manage them and failed to keep proper records as well.

He said going forward, government introduced the study in Botswana project and this had since reduced the number of students sent abroad for studies.

He said there was no proper system of collecting the money from debtors who dated as far back as 1999 because record keeping was previously done manually and there was no robust system of computerisation then.

“As we speak now, we are improving our record keeping system, something that we are monitored on through quarterly reviews. We hope this is a good nudge in the right direction to ensuring that our records are tight,” he said.

He, however, said the ministry was instituting a recovery process and was going all out to track the debtors by engaging meaningfully with the Omang office to trace where they come from as some had used the national identity cards.

He said the ministry was also working with the Botswana Unified Revenue Services to assist them trace debtors, through the government’s Human Resource Capital Management System from any other employing authority.

Mr Modubule told Matlhare and his lieutenants that the PAC did not take kindly to the missing reports or records.

“Those who lose records must account. We are not impressed with your report and in my career as a parliamentarian and chair of PAC, this has been the most difficult report that I have ever come across, it’s the worst ever,” he said.

The ministry was also asked to account for the money that was unspent during the financial year 2012/13 under the development budget that amounts to over P88million.

In the report, it was indicated that the under expenditure was due to the fact that the building of computer laboratories that was planned for, never took off.

70 million of the money was re-allocated for other sub-projects within the ministry such as maintenance of junior and senior secondary schools and Botswana Accountancy College Francistown Campus.

The PAC was also not amused by this, indicating that any unspent money should not be diverted without consent of Parliament. ENDS