Education Department notches up R954 million in irregular costs

SCHOOL infrastructure projects that were cancelled due to duplicate allocations to implementing agents made up the bulk of fruitless and wasteful expenditure in the Basic Education sector. Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke found that the Basic Education Department failed to prevent irregular expenditure amounting to R954 million during the auditing of its finances for the 2022/23 financial year. “The majority of the irregular expenditure was caused by the non-compliance with the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act and Public Finance Management Act,” Maluleke said. In its annual report, the department put the opening balance for irregular expenditure at R6.5 billion and disclosed R954m as being incurred for the year under review. It said of the R954m disclosed in the financial statements, R889m related to multi-year contracts awarded in the previous financial years and…