eThekwini Community College principal faces scrutiny over R80m financial irregularities

Durban — The principal of the eThekwini Community College Dr Sibusiso Mthethwa is in hot water with the college management after he allegedly squandered R80 million.

The college is a unit under the Department of Higher Education and Training which was established after Adult Basic Education and Training (Abet) was removed from UNISA and placed under this college. It teaches old people from grade 1 and also provides them with skills training.

This is contained in the affidavit deposed by the former Internal Audit Manager which she presented to the college’s council in September.

In her affidavit which was seen by the Daily News, she said when she joined the college in February last year, she picked a lot of inconsistencies in the finances of the college where known government policies provided by the Supply Chain Management such as the Public Finance Management Act, were not followed. The former audit manager added that there were weak finance procedures, governance controls and transparency in reporting.

“I can at this point, approximate around R80 million in irregularities at the college. This tallied from 2020 to December 2023, with wasteful expenditure at about 60% due to the services not being found or as a result of gaps in contract paperwork or purely just as a result of ignorance of management at the college in hasty decisions,” read the affidavit.

In the report which was more detailed, the former Internal Audit Manager under the executive summary said the primary objectives of these reviews were:

• To evaluate the adequacy and effectiveness of the internal control system over the governance process on financial disbursements being done and procedures at the College.
• To ensure that the college has designed the necessary controls and processes to mitigate against risks within their business activities and that the designed controls are working as intended to mitigate identified risks, and to provide assurance on the overall effectiveness and efficiency over payments made and to assure there is no suspected malpractice or fraudulent activity.

In her findings, she said the college was using outdated policies and they were not reviewed timeously, duplication of payments, and no service provider reconciliation was done on payments.

In addition, the findings revealed that there were payments into various other supplier accounts under pseudonyms. The college was found to be paying salaries from a different account instead of the main operational account. It is not clear why the college was doing this and where the money to pay salaries was coming from.

According to the council, this could have been intended to evade accountability for possible mismanagement of funds if the salaries were paid from the main account.

Another finding was that delegation of authority was not followed by the college management.

The report and the affidavit with R80 million missing was confirmed by the chairperson of the council Advocate Nqobile Zungu who said the council summoned the principal as the accounting officer to come and explain what was going on in the institution.

Zungu said the principal was called and he tried to verbally explain to the council but he was asked to compile his response in writing but has not done so, saying the meeting was last month.

“We are very much concerned about these irregularities contained in the audit report,” said Zungu.

The principal was sent questions on Monday last week but had not yet responded at the time of publishing.

Efforts to get comments from the Department of Higher Education and Training were unsuccessful.

An official from the minister’s office said a new spokesperson has not been appointed and they do not have anyone to comment at the moment - as Minister Dr Nobuhle Nkabane was abroad on an official trip.

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Daily News