Department thinks it can do as it pleases

KWAZULU-NATAL has experienced many challenges over the last few years – the Covid-19 pandemic, civil unrest in July last year which led to wide-scale looting and more recently, the devastating floods.

While KZN’s Department of Arts and Culture (DoAC) may see itself as a separate entity to these challenges, if one looks at the civil unrest in particular – which led to murder and racial attacks – it is clear that it has a vital role, given its core mandate of promoting social cohesion.

Massive under-expenditure

The department has a massive exclusive budget underspend of R131 million in 2021/2022, which equates to 10% of the total budget. This is the highest under expenditure in its history and it is unacceptable that the DoAC continues to underspend and get away with it.

The underspend is highly disturbing in view of the critical departmental vacancies that remain. It is also mind-boggling that R50 million was budgeted for less than 50 staff members. Fortunately, for KZN’s people, payments of salaries cannot be rolled over or it would have found its way into the pockets of senior departmental officials.

Then there are the many KZN musicians and artists who were financially sidelined by the DoAC during the pandemic. The unspent funds could have upgraded art centres for their use or even built much-needed new libraries in our province. Last year, the department disposed of almost its entire vehicle fleet. Some of the R131 million could have been used to buy replacement vehicles.

The DA believes that the only reason this department did not spend all its funds is because senior officials ran out of ways to siphon some for themselves. The DoAC is notorious for squandering funds and it comes as no surprise that it has so dismally failed at managing and spending its 2021/22 budget allocation. Moving forward, the DA expects a commitment from MEC Hlengiwe Mavimbela that the 2022/23 budget will be spent and that it will be spent responsibly.

Broken promises

The DA has numerous other concerns when it comes to the DoAC. These include heritage assets expenditure for the financial year 2022/2023, while the department has no clue as to what it currently owns.

Added to this is the indentured labourers monument – which the Indian community is still waiting for after a decade. Last year, the premier, in his State of the Province Address, promised that this would be completed by November 2021. The DoAC HOD also assured the portfolio committee that the monument was on track for November 2021. Yet today, there is still no monument while the budgeted R10 million is shrinking fast.

Dodgy booksellers

There are 17 companies listed as having been awarded three-year tenders for the supply of books to KZN libraries, yet none of the companies are members of the South African Booksellers Association. Three are not even legitimate booksellers, while others on the list were red-flagged by eThekwini Municipality. This led to a tender being withdrawn due to alleged bid rigging and the fact that two of these companies operate from the same address.

In this regard, the DA has laid a criminal charge with the SAPS at Phoenix, crime administration system (Cas) number 719/03/2022. A further charge has been laid by the DA against certain DoAC individuals after the discovery of further departmental fraud and corruption

relating to the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) valued at R2.2 million, for the as yet unopened Dukuduku Library.

Additional criminal charges were then laid with Pietermaritzburg SAPS (PMB Cas number 199/03/2022) after the case was transferred. More charges were also laid relating to the procurement of R5.8m in PPE for eight as yet unopened modular libraries in the province.

One scandal after another

KZN’s Music House is yet another DoAC embarrassment. This studio was meant to be the best in the southern hemisphere, yet not a single CD has been recorded despite millions of rand been spent.

The DA expects the long-outstanding forensic report into this matter to be made public. We want to know who will be held responsible for this massive failure and why they have not been criminally charged.

The Uthungulu Arts Centre is yet another embarrassment with more than R30m spent on a now dilapidated building and a R30m consultant’s fee to date.

The DA also established that on the last day of the 2021/2022 financial year, the department paid R7.8m for the procurement of magazines for KZN libraries. To date, not a single magazine has been delivered.

Surprisingly, this payment was made to Ithala bank which has now refused to process the payment due to irregularities and has sent it back to the DoAC. Since the DA exposed this debacle, the department’s chief financial officer (CFO) has gone into hiding, refusing to release the funds.

The DA also exposed the DoAC for having spent R7.9m on library-based laptops for the public, which were instead given to librarians and staff.

The amount of money spent on laptops was almost eight times more than the market price.

This was followed by spending R39m on a three-year contract on internet library connectivity which is exorbitant. Then, in October last year, the DA revealed that the DoAC had bought two 65-seater buses – at a cost of R2m each – for use as mobile libraries. The buses were plastered with photos of the MEC yet today they remain unused as a result of being unsuitable for their intended purpose.

It is clear that this department thinks it can do as it pleases and not follow mechanisms to prevent corruption. This is not helped by an MEC who does not listen when concerns are raised and who has failed to address a single scandal brought to her attention by the DA.

The DA is committed to ensuring that every single individual who is robbing this department is held to account. Our province’s people can no longer be hoodwinked.