29 HEAD TEACHERS SPEND E35M, AG WANTS ANSWERS

MBABANE - Are head teachers using school funds willy-nilly or do they have total disregard of government accounting procedures?

The Auditor General Timothy Shongwe discovered that over E35 million school funds were allegedly used on expenditure that was unauthorised or unsupported.

The AG revealed this in his report for the year ended March 31, 2018, which was tabled in Parliament during the budget speech presentation. Shongwe said 13 schools had E20 342 549.20 unauthorised expenditure. He said this indicated that head teachers and chairpersons exercised unfettered powers in the use of school funds.
“This promotes fruitless and wasteful expenditure and misappropriation of school funds by the head teachers,” he said.

UNSUPPORTED EXPENDITURE

He alleged that 16 of the audited schools were found to have unsupported expenditure amounting to E14 986 326.60 in the years under review.
“This was caused by that most head teachers paid individuals instead of suppliers, and the lack of supervision and control checks by the school committee,” he said.
These allegations are contained in a report which is yet to be debated and adopted in Parliament.

One such school is Dvokolwako High School which is under the Manzini Region. The AG alleged that cheque payments amounting to E1 198 547.43 and E1 549 281.00 in the fiscal years 2015 and 2016 respectively, were not supported with the required documents, which include quotations, contracts, delivery notes, invoices, receipts, and the actual cheque.

“Furthermore, in the same financial years, cheque payments amounting to E723 618.60 and E 1 105 184.41 respectively, were made to individuals and there were no supporting documents,” Shongwe noted.
This brings the total unsupported amount to E4 576 631.44.

The AG stated that the head teacher violated Section 13.0 of the Schools Accounting Regulations, which required that the head teacher will record all expenditure incurred by the school and ensure that payment vouchers are supported with accounting source documents such as quotations, contracts, delivery notes, invoices, receipts, and the actual cheque.

“The unsupported expenditure was caused by the fact that most of these payments were made to individuals instead of companies. This was in violation of the Financial and Accounting Instruction 0815, which requires, ‘that a cheque payment to a company will be drawn in favour of the firm or company and not to any individual of the company’,” he said.

Shongwe stated that this implies lack of enforcement of the ‘Schools Accounting Regulations’ and the ‘Procurement Regulations’ by the Ministry of Education and Training and by the School Committee due to inadequate knowledge about Government Regulations; and lack of supervision and control checks in the entire process of the management of schools funds.

He said the non-supporting of expenditure derailed the audit trail and made it impossible to ascertain if the expenditure actually occurred and was indeed for educational purposes.
“It compromises accountability and transparency on the use of school funds, and also encourages wasteful expenditure and misuse of school funds,” he alleged.

He alleged that at Mater Dolorosa High School, he noted that the head teacher incurred expenditure amounting to E3 395 932.05 and E1 739 126.88 in the fiscal years 2015 and 2016 respectively, without approval by the School Committee.
This translates to over E5 million in unauthorised expenditure. He said in some occurrences, the expenditure was reported to the School Committee after the money had already been utilised, which violate the regulation.
“The head teacher exercised unfettered powers to spend school funds without the approval of the School Committee,” he said. 

He said in reference to school, the Schools Accounting Regulations, Section 12.2, which requires that each expenditure of E2 000 or above from the school fund must be authorised by the School Committee and be recorded was violated.
“I noted with concern that, this was caused by lack of enforcement of the Schools Accounting Regulations by the School Committee and deliberate flouting of laid-down regulations by the head-teacher. This promotes fruitless expenditure and misappropriation of school funds by the head teacher. The school funds might be used for non-educational purposes and may not be accounted for by the head teacher,” he said.

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