Sport's finances in a mess

2008-11-23 21:26

Johannesburg - Sports Minister Makhenkesi Stofile's Department of Sports and Recreation is in a financial mess, according to the auditor general's report released this week.

In giving the department a qualified audit, Sports and Recreation was rapped over the knuckles after they broke the law, had massive amounts of money either missing or unaccounted for, could not follow proper corporate governance procedures and paid irregular bonuses to employees.

Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Sondag published details of the report which formed the basis of a meeting between the Parliamentary Committee on Sport this week and the Auditor General to try and find a way of rectifying the problem faced by the department.

The newspaper reported that in the same week as controversial Parliamentary Sports Committee chairman Butana Khompela threatened "to take away rugby stadiums", SA Rugby was narrowly beaten by Wales to the first worldwide Rugby Expo award for the best run rugby union on the planet.

SA Rugby beat England, New Zealand and Australia for the honour.

While Stofile was actively gunning for the removal of the Springbok badge from the national rugby jersey, the Auditor General highlighted a number of critical problems in his own department, not the least being R2m which was paid to Boxing South Africa against the law and R4m which was paid to athletes, but for which there was no evidence that it ever reached the athletes.

Matters that the report highlighted include:

- R2m which was paid to Boxing South Africa. According to the Auditor General there was no permission received from the National Treasury, as is required by law.

- Irregular bonuses paid to employees for which no proof was received.

- No records of assets and therefore no idea of what the department owns. There is also R732 990 fewer assets than the department's own asset register shows.

- Adjustments in the asset register of R562 000 which has not been explained sufficiently.

- No proper records of royalties received for the use of the Protea as national emblem. According to the report it seems as if as from August 1 2005, there are no or minimal records of royalties received.

- An amount of R4 018 714 which has been paid "to athletes". There is no evidence that athletes received the money or that the Federations paid it over to the athletes.

- No evidence for "donations" of R100 000.

- "Irregular" expenditure of R6 081 000.

- Unauthorised expenditure of R674 640.

- SAPA