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Justice spends R1bn on cashflow
05/07/2006 18:02 - (SA)
Pretoria - The department of justice and constitutional affairs has budgeted R1bn to update its management of money in trust programme (MMIT), said chief operations officer Khotso W de Wee on Wednesday.
His remarks come after auditor-general Shauket Fakie tabled a report in parliament on Tuesday identifying serious financial and administrative inefficiencies in the MMIT.
The mismanagement of maintenance, inheritance, fine and other money controlled by the department resulted in a total shortfall and unreconciled balance of R178m.
De Wee said the MMIT programme and processes were introduced 40 years ago and the department had started looking three years ago at ways to update it.
"It is a historical problem. Advances in technologies have resulted in present manual processes not being able to cope with the requirements of financial management," he said.
He said Fakie's investigation, which was done at the request of the department, had confirmed the problems with the system.
He announced that the department had short-listed six consortiums to help them address the problem. The project had a budget of R1bn over the next 10 years.
"It is targeted to award a tender by the end of this year, and will require full implementation covering all areas of South Africa by 2007," he said.
267 court managers being appointed
The new electronic system would create an audit trail showing from whom and to whom money was paid out, would help in balancing accounts and speed up service delivery.
This included money that could be paid out at place like banks and courts.
De Wee said the department also had started addressing the lack of human resource capacity that had added to the problem.
He said there were 267 court managers in various stages of appointment and they also had appointed 86 maintenance investigators and 435 maintenance officers to help people using the courts.
- SAPA
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