A damning report by the Auditor General has revealed how the Department of Tertiary Education Funding (DTEF) lost tens of millions of Pula because the minister violated established accounting procedure.
It further emerged from the report that some senior management perpetuated unethical practice by overriding established control procedures relating to payments made by DTEF.
The report stops short of blaming political interference for setting a bad governance precedence at DTEF.
The report covers the 2015 period when Unity Dow was the minister and political head at the ministry.
She has recently resigned from government. Although the Auditor General did not mention any names, she recommended that any misconduct or abuse of office by top management should be referred to other government oversight structures to account accordingly.
The audit at DTEF was commissioned by the Ministry of Higher Education after Dow was transferred to the Ministry of External Affairs.
Among other things the ministry wanted an expert opinion on dealings between the ministry and International Aviation Solutions (IAS).
IAS is a piloting school. In more recent times IAS mounted a concerted campaign to get money it alleged government owed them.
The audit concluded that in fact IAS owes government over P44 million and should pay the money back.
Somewhere in the body of the report, the Auditor General states that “The DTEF is advised to recover the amount of P28, 891, 350. 35c from IAS. It is also recommended that regular or periodic reconciliations of student progress against funds disbursed be undertaken.”
Auditor General produced a table of items owed government by IAS. They add up to over P44 million.
This is not withstanding a P19 million invoice that IAS through their director Teezah Seduke has submitted to government for payment.
Seduke has been lobbying political leadership, the intelligence services and some sections of the media to intervene on his behalf.
The audit further revealed that the minister overruled an established accounting procedure in the DTEF manual.
Furthermore, it was observed that some senior management perpetuated unethical practice by overriding established control procedures relating to payments made by DTEF
On 10 august 2015, through a letter the Acting Director for DTEF had informed IAS of the error that occurred during payments of previous invoices and further requested IAS to separate PPL from CPL bills.
But IAS appealed the decision to the Minister of education and skills development who overruled the decision and instructed payment of fees for all the stages at once.
“Overriding financial controls contravened the provisions of the Financial controls and lead to loss of government funds. Furthermore, senior management who do not adhere to controls, practically set unethical precedence.”
The minister at the time was Unity Dow.
The report by the Auditor General has recommended that management should adhere to procedures demonstrated in the “DETF manual” without any compromise.
Furthermore, the Auditor General has said any misconduct or abuse of office by top management should be referred to other government oversight structures to account accordingly.
“It is recommended that DTEF should recover the p6, 039, 934.26 from IAS,” says the report by Auditor General.
