Funds riddle answers are long overdue

WHAT started off three years ago as a very good plan to teach skills to struggle veterans and political detainees, has ended up mired in controversy and shrouded in mystery.

The crucial questions are what happened to the R500 000 that the council handed over to the trust operating the scheme, chaired by Mayor Nceba Faku. And why is there no trace of paper work and accounting for the defunct scheme?

With someone as experienced as the mayor at the helm it should have run like clockwork. And he should have all the answers at his well-educated fingertips.

Premises were established, and perhaps prophetically, coffin-making was the main function. Wood would have been purchased and the finished product would surely have been sold. Simple book-keeping and filing, no more complex than that done by the average family, would have sufficed.

It is also troubling that ANC councillor Mcebisi Msizi was axed as chairman of the council’s grants-in-aid committee soon after quite rightly asking probing questions. Surely others, including the trustees, should have been asking the same questions, especially when the wheels came off.

In a letter dated September 4, 1999, signed by Faku, the trust assured the municipal director of administration that a report would be submitted. It never was.

Why was that allowed to ride to this day? R500 000 is missing, another R250 000 is owed. And it looks suspiciously like the whole matter was quietly swept under the carpet. It’s an intolerable situation.

It is in Faku’s interests to provide that long-promised report. As he knows, financial accountability is a non-negotiable procedure for those in public office.

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Budget: Now it’s up to Bisho to deliver

FINANCE Minister Trevor Manuel’s good news Budget has been well received and is full of hope for a better deal for the poor, but a major obstacle stands between the intended recipients and the R34,3-billion that has been pledged for welfare.

Since 1999 the Port Elizabeth High Court has heard 1 340 cases from welfare applicants who had not been paid. It is costing the Bisho government millions of rands in litigation – money which is going to lawyers instead of the needy, thanks to administrative ineptitude.

Mr Justice Eric Leach said in a judgement against the Welfare Department last year: “One shudders to speculate on the height to which the respondents’ total costs liability has escalated for all these cases. Substantial sums are being paid from the public purse, solely by reason of the inefficiency of public servants.”

And in his state of the nation address recently President Thabo Mbeki slammed uncaring civil servants. He said they should rather find employment elsewhere.

But Mbeki should know that fat cats seldom venture far from the cream.

So while Manuel’s heart is in the right place, the money will remain in the wrong place until Bisho sorts out its problems – problems Manuel and the government probably know little about. Because as we commented earlier this week, until politicians see to it that they are properly informed, administrative atrocities will flourish.