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The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called on the Mopani District mayor, Pule Shayi, to urgently discipline implicated officials and take action to implement the committee’s recommendations.

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Sizwe sama Yende

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Resigned Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) workers and those whose contracts were not terminated when they reached the age of 60 could be the reason the Mopani District’s EPWP budget ballooned by R3.4 million.

According to the Audit Committee report dated July 30, EPWP beneficiaries, who were based at the Modjadjiskloof Fire Services and were replaced, still received their monthly stipends from August 2023 to February 2024.

Mopani District Municipality has a seat in Giyani and it oversees the local municipalities of Greater Giyani, Greater Letaba, Greater Tzaneen, Ba-Phalaborwa and Maruleng.

The municipality’s EPWP budget of R13.5 million was overspent by R3.4 million.

“During the internal audit of employee verification for EPWP participants, it was identified that the EPWP vote has been significantly overspent. The total budget allocated for EPWP amounted to R13 488 841, yet the total expenditure recorded stands at R16 886 965,” reads the audit committee report.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called on the Mopani District mayor, Pule Shayi, to urgently discipline implicated officials and take action to implement the committee’s recommendations.

DA councillor, Mahlatswa Ramalepe, said that the report “paints a dire picture of the ANC-led administration’s poor handling of the programme.”

“The audit findings revealed ineffective and inadequate internal controls, poor management of the programme and a lack of good governance that must be investigated and addressed,” Ramalepe said.

The report also found:

• Unverified number of EPWP beneficiaries on the payroll (in that 117 out of 674 active EPWP beneficiaries could not be conclusively verified);

• Employment contracts that were not terminated upon the beneficiary reaching the age of 60; and that

• EPWP participants exceeded the 24-month programme contract limit within any five year cycle and EPWP participants had missing contracts.

Mopani District spokesperson, Odas Ngobeni, said that the municipality took the audit committee’s report very seriously.

“We will, of course, implement consequence management where we have to.  We may also have to bring the Financial Misconduct Board, but that will obviously be determined by the outcomes and report from the team which is already seized with the matter.  We will also not hesitate to open criminal charges where we find foul play.  

Ngobeni said that the municipality’s management committee had since resolved to stop the payment of stipend to all unverified volunteers.

 “At that time, the number was 117 of unverified volunteers.  However, this number is reducing every day and would obviously have changed significantly by the time of the next sitting of council.  The number of unverified EPWP volunteers is now at 84 from the 117 that was reported to Council in July,” he said.  

Ngobeni said a team from human resources would be deployed to work with the Internal Audit Committee to continue with verification.

He said that the EPWP grant had been reduced in the past three consecutive years. “The grant was at R10,6 million in the 2022/23 financial year, R8,9 million in the 2023/24 EPWP, and R6,7 million in the current financial year. The borehole operators were in the past paid from the Water budget, instead of the EPWP Vote.   Council will receive a detailed report in its next ordinary sitting.”