PAC RESERVES FRIDAY FOR EMBATTLED CTA BOSS

MBABANE – The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has cleared its Friday calendar and reserved it specifically for embattled CTA’s General Transport Manager Washington Khumalo. 

According to the schedule released by the PAC, Khumalo is expected to give feedback on all the anomalies regarding charges for repair costs of government vehicles. 

For the past month, during the sittings of the PAC, all ministries who appeared before the committee raised concerns that they were made to pay for vehicles which were sometimes reported to have been in car accidents, yet that was not the case. 

In some instances, for example, under the Ministry of Defence and National Security, one vehicle S048 was reported to have gone for panel beating on December 17, 2019 at a cost of E39 431.60. 

 Cost 

Interestingly, five days later, on December 22, 2019, the same vehicle was reported to have once again been taken for panel beating at a similar cost. 

This led to the PAC coming to the conclusion that some of the bills were duplicated for some reason by officers at the Central Transport Administration. 

The auditor general, in his compliance report, further noted that the unrecovered costs for accident-damaged government vehicles by government officers and other parties amounted to over E48.3 million. 

However, most ministries denied that most of their vehicles had been involved in accidents as they were recorded at the CTA and disputed some of the bills forwarded to them. 

In most instances, when the PAC asked the GTM what had happened to a specific vehicle, he would ask to be given time to go and investigate before giving feedback. 

The PAC, through its Chairperson Matsanjeni North Member of Parliament (MP) Phila Buthelezi, said this was the reason that they had set aside the whole day to deal with the CTA/GTM issues. 

On Friday, the PAC is also expected to meet with the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, which is the parent ministry for the CTA and the accountant general ( AG) to thrash out the formula for calculating CTA charges. 

Khumalo is also expected to give updates on PAC recommendations and other audit queries. 

“The CTA GTM is also expected to give feedback on all the anomalies regarding the changing of number plates on the secretary to Cabinet vehicle and the recovery of ex-Anti Corruption Commissioner’s vehicle,” reads the agenda. 

About three weeks ago, the PAC had instructed Khumalo, with the help from the police, to go and recover the vehicle, a Mercedes Benz from South Africa where it was said to be. 

Other issue that were highlighted during the course of the PAC sittings was how government paid E102 000 to repaint former Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Edgar Hillary’s brand new BMW.  

Insolence

Meanwhile, last week Friday, Khumalo was temporarily locked up in Parliament after the PAC stated that he was displaying insolence by refusing to respond to questions posed and instead firing back a question to the PAC. 

Khumalo is already under fire from his parent ministry where he was slapped with a charge of insubordination.   

Last week, the GTM was even forced to drive himself to the Lobamba Police Station where he had even contacted his attorney, Noncedo Ndlangamandla, but it was discovered that no charges had been laid against him by Parliament. 

When MP Buthelezi asked Khumalo to briefly excuse them from sitting the former had submitted in vernacular that ‘mvaleleni sekake ayomphompa’ loosely translated to mean ‘go lock him up so he can go and cool off’.

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