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CTA OVERCHARGES MINISTRY BY E300 000 FOR ‘GHOST CARS’

By Zwelethu Dlamini | 2020-11-01

The discovery of an overcharge amounting to E300 000 resulting from the errors in the Central Transport Administration (CTA) billing system seems to explain the over-expenditure by government ministries when it comes to CTA charges.

This discovery has rendered the amount charged to ministries for services by CTA questionable, as ministries had found themselves paying for the service twice even when it was rendered once. Furthermore, some of the services had been grossly overcharged, which makes the ministries believe is the reason why they always find themselves incurring an over-expenditure.

One of the government ministries that had discovered this anomaly is the ministry of natural resources and energy, which was not only overcharged by over E100 000 for renting two vehicles, but had once again been billed for a service never rendered this year and amount of E193 000.

The ministry had CTA Vehicle Charges over-expenditure representing 37 per cent of the total budget released for the year ended March 31, 2019. Not only did the ministry discover that they were overcharged but also that the bills for the same vehicles were not the same despite vehicles having been used for the same functions and of a similar model. For instance, one of the vehicles was charged E164 000 for a month, while the other was charged E17 000.

“While the aggregated CTA Vehicle Charges over-expenditure represented 37 of the total budget released; a remarkably high over-expenditure representing 854 per cent of the released budget was incurred by the Surveys Responsibility Centre and E2 748 860.79 (29 per cent) incurred by the ministry administration. Over-expenditures beyond the budget released funds as appropriated by Parliament are not only unlawful but also result in serious repercussions in the fiscal budget,” reported the auditor general in his financial report of the year ended March 31, 2019.

The AG said over-expenditure is contravention of Financial and Accounting Instruction number 0202, which states that Controlling Officers are responsible for ensuring that no amount is spent in excess of the amounts specified in the Treasury Warrants. “In her response, referenced NRF/3/1/11/2, dated October 4, 2019, the Controlling Officer acknowledged the over-expenditure on CTA Vehicle Charges amounting to E2 748 860.79, incurred under the ministry’s administration (Responsibility Centre 11).

The retired PS Winnie Stewart had said the contributing factors to the overexpenditure: the CTA billing system, which includes long term hire charges, maintenance charges and other associated CTA charges, which the ministry has no control over, hence over-expenditure is unavoidable and the Drill Rig contributes immensely to the overexpenditure, which always comes as a supplementary request for fuelling,” further reported Matsebula.

The PS then explained how the overcharge happened and their discovery. She stated that the surveyor general wrote a minute to the principal secretary requesting authority to hire two vehicles from CTA in order to carry out the data collection exercise for Project No. X509/99 entitled: Sustainable Land Administration and Management (SLAM).

“Subsequently, the two Isuzu twin cab vehicles, GSD 404 CP and GSD 292 CP were released by the CTA to the Ministry for the Project. When the Ministry requested the rent charges for the two vehicles, CTA gave out amounts of E164 000 and E17 000 for one month (October) and those were observed to be exorbitant and inconsistent because the vehicles were driven from one place to the same destinations every day,” explained the PS.

She added that when the transport administration was requested for a breakdown of the charges, none was forthcoming; hence the ministry decided to surrender the vehicles to CTA and sought an alternative from commercial vehicle hire companies.

This did not end in 2018, as the ministry once again was taken by surprise to find that CTA had charged them an almost similar amount for the same vehicles despite that they were never hired in 2019. The ministry then wrote a memo to the general transport manager dated November 8, 2019 for the over charge caused by the anomaly in the billing system.

“The ministry kindly requests your good office to correct the identified anomalies from the vehicle and equipment rental charges report. The ministry kindly requests a journal voucher with an amount of E193 643 which has been incurred by the ministry as a result of the anomaly,” reads the memo from the PS directed to the CTA.

The PS also stated that the anomaly for the vehicles registered GSD 404 CP and GSD 292 CP was also incurred during the month of October 2018, but no clarity was given when sought.

“The ministry requested clarity regarding the charges for the hired vehicles from your department and the anomaly was never addressed,” said the PS. The AG on the other hand said though he appreciated the explanation about causes of over-expenditure in question, as given by the Controlling Officer.

He was not aware of any corrective measures undertaken by the ministry to strengthen internal controls, and the assurance of their effectiveness to eliminate the occurrence of over-expenditure on CTA Vehicle Charges and Personnel Costs.

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