In Sassa’s latest financial statements tabled in Parliament on Friday, the Auditor General says the agency did not take effective steps to prevent the irregular expenditure.

The Auditor General has deemed the R43 million spent by the South Africa Social Security Agency (Sassa) on so-called work streams to have been irregular.

In Sassa’s latest financial statements tabled in Parliament on Friday, the Auditor General says the agency did not take effective steps to prevent the irregular expenditure.

The work streams were appointed by Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini to design a new grant payment model, but their contracts were cancelled in June after Treasury flagged their irregular appointment.

During the 2016/17 financial year, irregular expenditure at Sassa grew to R1.4 billion.

Much of this irregular expenditure is still the subject of disputes with Treasury.

In its latest financial report, Sassa says it considered a deviation from competitive bidding to allow for the appointment of work streams and work stream leaders to compile a ministerial advisory report.

They were tasked with among other things, fast-tracking the acquisition of technical skills before a progress report had to be submitted to the Constitutional Court to explain why it was not ready to take over grant payments.

The bulk of the irregular expenditure relates to the extension of security contracts and office leases without following proper procurement processes.

By: EWN

Author: Don V