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The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) says the Limpopo premier and his Cabinet should have been fired when five departments were placed under administration by the national government.

“We believe the Limpopo executive should have been sacked because all these things happened right under its nose. The appropriate response should have made sure the political leadership is fired. We believe this is the way to show that we are serious about good governance and committed to promoting good financial management” said Scopa Chairperson, Mr Themba Godi.

The committee said this earlier today when it received a briefing from National Treasury on the progress made with regard to audit committees and compliance with treasury regulations, as well as progress on its intervention in Limpopo.

Godi said: “What emerged from this briefing was a disturbing picture of gross mismanagement of funds, disregard of the prescripts of the law and poor internal controls.”

These are some of the findings by National Treasury:

• The Exco ( Premier and MEC’s) endorsed illegal procurement process
• Evidence of illegal payments and irregular lease agreements
• The public finance function was dysfunctional and had serious capacity challenges, leading to poor expenditure monitoring, and poor budget planning
• R2.2 billion accumulated unauthorised expenditure in the Education Department
• Insufficient audit evidence for commitments totalling R2.9 billion
• Accumulated unauthorised expenditure of R67 million at the end of 31 March 2011

The Committee will decide on the possibility of visiting Limpopo to engage with the political leadership and senior management.