AfriForum lays charges after Limpopo departments misappropriates R1,11 billion

AfriForum today laid criminal charges against Dr. Sipho Kababa, Head of Limpopo’s Department of Health, and Mr MC Matthews, accounting officer of Limpopo’s Department of Education as part of its “Genoeg is Genoeg” (enough is enough) campaign that was launched on Monday, 18 April. This comes after the organisation studied the General Consolidated Annual Report of the Auditor General (AG) and found that Kababa and Matthews might possibly be guilty of offences in terms of the Article 86(1) of the Public Finance Management Act, 1999.

The AG report indicates that the Department of Health incurred fruitless and wasteful expenses of R43 million in the 2014/2015 financial year. In the same year, the Department of Education not only spent R73 million on fruitless and wasteful expenses, but also R994 million on irregular expenses.

“Irregular expenses constitute all expenses incurred inconsistent with what the Act prescribes. Fruitless and wasteful expenses constitute all expenses incurred in vain, but could have been prevented if reasonable precaution had been taken. These excessive expenses could have been prevented if the heads of department fulfilled their duties,” said Monique Taute, AfriForum’s National Campaign Coordinator.

The charges against the head of department and the accounting officer are based on alleged financial misappropriation in terms of the above-mentioned Act. They are the officers responsible for preventing irregular, fruitless, wasteful and unauthorised expenses and for holding guilty parties accountable.

“They let taxpayers down by failing to fulfil their duties,” Taute said.

“It is time that taxpayers put pressure on the National Prosecuting Authority to make examples of heads of department who do not fulfil their duties as prescribed by the Act. They are some of the biggest perpetrators in the misappropriation of taxpayers’ money. It is a national crisis that must be resolved urgently.”

AfriForum will visit eight provinces in the next two weeks, during which criminal charges will be laid against 13 provincial heads of department.

AfriForum wants to encourage the public to put the necessary pressure on the National Prosecuting Authority by sending an SMS with their name to 45352 (R1) or by signing the charges on AfriForum’s web site at www.afriforum.co.za.