Cape Town — Minister of Transport, Patricia de Lille, cleared the air over irregular payments made through South Africa’s Tourism’s United States of America (USA) and South Africa offices over services not rendered.
De Lille said, in the interest of transparency, she wished to update the public on the matter. She said she was made aware about a number of irregular payments and invoices noted which do not meet the definition of compliant and valid or internal control verification standards, the Department of Tourism said in a statement.
“These payments were processed from the USA and the South Africa offices of SA Tourism at the end of March 2023 by executives who are no longer in the employment of SA Tourism.” department spokesperson, Zara Nicholson, said.
The discovery was triggered by a review by SA Tourism which confirmed that a significant portion received by a media agency in March 2023, and that was signed off by an acting Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operations Officer and acting CEO, were for services not rendered at the time of disbursement.
Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille says R35 million linked to irregular payments for services not rendered has been returned to the SA Tourism account https://t.co/0jLO7DTUwl
— @SAgovnews (@SAgovnews) April 29, 2024
It was revealed that SA Tourism was able to recover all the funds linked to the irregular payment, totalling R35 million.
“These irregular payments are completely shocking and it is unacceptable that officials entrusted with public funds continue to act with such contempt of public finance laws and regulations. We will not leave this matter unaccounted for. The internal audit report is being finalised and the matter has also been reported to the Auditor General of South Africa to investigate,” de Lille said.
“We are relieved that all the money has been recovered from the irregular payments. I can also confirm that Auditor General of South Africa is in the process of finalising a delegation from the AG’s office to do an audit on the SA Tourism New York office,” de Lille concluded.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
