{"id":6916,"date":"2013-07-09T18:01:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-09T18:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=6916"},"modified":"2013-07-09T18:01:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-09T18:01:40","slug":"almost-r1-billion-lost-to-known-government-fraud-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=6916","title":{"rendered":"Almost R1 billion lost to known government fraud in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"3d<\/a>The Times reports that nearly R1-billion lost through fraud in the public service has not been recovered.<\/p>\n

Government departments have managed to get less than R1-million back into the state’s coffers.<\/p>\n

The Public Service Commission has found that the public service lost R932.3-million to financial misconduct in the 2010-2011 financial year.<\/p>\n

According to the commission, misconduct relates to theft, mismanagement, misappropriation and abuse of funds, fraud, corruption and gross negligence.<\/p>\n

North West – where fighting between rival factions in the ruling ANC is rife – was the worst offender.<\/p>\n

Financial misconduct by public servants cost the province R673821980.45, but the authorities managed to recover only R4530.<\/p>\n

Limpopo, which had several departments placed under administration by the cabinet, performed much better than North West.<\/p>\n

Financial misconduct cost it R16123114.64 – but only a measly R1367.37 was recovered.<\/p>\n

Figures for the 2011-2012 financial year show that the cost of financial misconduct has dropped dramatically to R230-million but cases monitored by the commission rose to 1243 – up from 1035 the year before.<\/p>\n

In 2011-2012, departments in Gauteng misused R14-million of public money.<\/p>\n

Only R27000 has been recouped to date.<\/p>\n

Gauteng flushed away R18463258 and recovered a mere R4259.<\/p>\n

Public Service Commission member Mike Seloane said the drop can be attributed to two factors.<\/p>\n

“The systems are becoming effective or departments are simply not declaring financial misconduct. There are departments that have declared no financial misconduct,” he said.<\/p>\n

The commission will launch an inquiry into the reasons for the low rate of recovery of misused public money.<\/p>\n

In addition to financial misappropriation, the commission observed that efforts to deal with the problem were being frustrated by political heads of department.<\/p>\n

It expressed displeasure at the “reluctance by departments to disclose fully the financial misconduct cases”.<\/p>\n

And it noted that there were “no concrete plans to ensure that money lost to the state was recovered fully”.<\/p>\n

The report detailing the latest national financial misconduct figures is expected to be published and presented in parliament in August or September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Times reports that nearly R1-billion lost through fraud in the public service has not been recovered. Government departments have managed to get less than R1-million back into the state’s coffers. The Public Service Commission has found that the public service lost R932.3-million to financial misconduct in the 2010-2011 financial year. According to the commission, … Continue reading “Almost R1 billion lost to known government fraud in South Africa”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[219,1268,3830,402],"class_list":["post-6916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-corruption","tag-fraud","tag-government","tag-public-service-commission"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/fraud.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6918,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6916\/revisions\/6918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}