16 Apr 2026

Government has incurred P19.5 million in public officers’ salary overpayment leakages by the end of March in the 2021/2022 financial year. 

Presenting the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Report for the 61st Meeting (2021-2022 accounts) to Parliament on Wednesday, PAC chairperson, Mr Taolo Lucas said salary overpayments within the public service remained a major issue, which prompted audits and urgent calls for improved payroll controls.

Mr Lucas noted that among all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), the payroll lapses were particularly prevalent in the Ministry of Education with P10 million and the Ministry of Health with P6 million in overpayments. 

He also indicated that persistent delays in imprest retirement by public servants often resulted in employees retiring from the service without ever repaying the outstanding funds. 

The PAC also identified recurring glitches within the Government Accounting and Budgeting System (GABS). 

Mr Lucas regretted that the system’s poor performance had impeded productivity and economic growth for years.

 The malfunction of GABS was cited as a major contributor to low productivity regarding government’s execution of financial transactions, especially payments to suppliers. 

“From the many PAC sittings, it surfaced that GABS had overtime experienced many challenges of sub-optimal performance and has, during the period under review, failed to even process payment vouchers of government suppliers, something which could have hindered the growth of the economy,” he said. 

Mr Lucas expressed concern over lack of compliance by some accounting officers regarding PAC recommendations, stating that such defiance rendered the committee inefficient. 

He pleaded for the committee to be empowered with legislative frameworks to fully execute its oversight mandate. 

He highlighted that the committee had been regarded as ‘toothless’ for years due to its inability to take legal action based on its findings. 

As such, Mr Lucas urged Members of Parliament to provide statutory instruments that empowered the committee to scrutinise government spending and highlight waste to ensure sound and transparent public financial management. 

He emphasised that accountability in the public sector was about answering for how public money was spent. 

“One of the key roles of legislators should be to improve the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of government expenditure and enforce public accountability through effective probing and seeking for accountability from accounting officers,” Mr Lucas said. 

Commenting on the PAC report, Francistown South Member of Parliament, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi noted that payroll lapses were often administrative failures. “

These failures lead to payments for non-existent employees when records are not updated promptly after a staff member leaves the service,” he said. 

Mr Mmolotsi, a former PAC chairperson, pointed out that delays in processing terminations resulted in payments for days not worked, particularly among temporary teachers. 

He urged ministries to rectify such issues by strengthening operational standards and ensure that contract renewals were processed well before current contracts expired.

 He highlighted the need to strengthen the PAC to ensure that authorities entrusted with public resources remained accountable. ENDS