26 Mar 2015

The Assistant Minister of Education and Skills Development, Mr Kgotla Autlwetse, has told Parliament that he is not aware of any fund embezzlement at the Botswana Society for the Deaf in Francistown.

Answering a parliamentary question on March 25, Mr Autlwetse said his ministry had in the past three years given the Botswana Society for the Deaf subvention amounting to P3 917 411.65. He said in 2012/13 the amount was P302 200.00, 2013/14 was P 1513 269.65 while in 2014/15 it was P2 101 942.00.

The assistant minister told the house that the last audit done at the Francistown centre for Deaf Education (FCDE) was during the 2013/14 financial year by an Inter- ministerial Team following the rationalisation of all NGOs and their alignment to line ministries.

He said the audit was meant to inform the capacitation of these NGOs in various areas including effective and efficient utilisation of public funds allocated to them.

Mr Autlwetse further said his ministry instituted an internal audit for all the 11 NGOs receiving subvention directly from the ministry, adding that the audit exercise is on-going and the Francistown Centre for Deaf is yet to be audited.

In addition, he said his ministry was not aware of evidence of any cases where deceased and resigned people were drawing salaries long after their deaths or departures. He also added that he was not aware of any workers who are paid less than what was requested /budgetary allocation from the ministry.

He assured the house that the ministry would continue to carry out the annual audits and take appropriate action against any embezzlement of public funds allocated to any NGO or any Ministry Department for that matter.

The Member of Parliament for Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi had asked the minister how much subvention was given to the Botswana Society for the Deaf in the last three years. Mr Mmolotsi had also asked the minister if he was aware of fund embezzlement at the centre, and also wanted to know when the last audit was done at the Francistown centre and what the findings were. 

He further asked the minister whether he was aware that there was evidence of cases where deceased and resigned people were drawing salaries long after their deaths or departures and some workers were paid less than what was requested from the ministry. ENDS