Makana's former acting chief financial officer says she's not responsible for huge discrepancies in payments to councillors last month, as the municipality begins investigating numerous irregularities in the payroll that emerged recently.
Makana's former acting chief financial officer says she's not responsible for huge discrepancies in payments to councillors last month, as the municipality begins investigating numerous irregularities in the payroll that emerged recently.
A council meeting on 25 January revealed that when councillors were paid last month, R10 579 had been deducted from the allowance of Mayor Zamuxolo Peter, without authorisation. It was stated at the meeting that former acting chief financial officer (CFO), Namhla Dlulane, had made the deduction.
Chief Whip, Councillor Vuyani Kolisi's salary was increased by R430 000 to compensate for an assumed underpayment of salary. Only the mayor's salary had been increased by 5% last month – an increment that was supposed to come into effect for all councillors only after the council and the MEC of Local Government had approved it, as gazetted.
Councillor Nombulelo Masoma was said to have been overpaid.
In an emailed response to queries by Grocott's Mail as to how the situation had come about, Dlulane explained that when she had started at the municipality, there had been no process of reviewing the payroll before the actual payment of salaries. As a result, there had been instances in which salaries were paid incorrectly to deceased, retired or resigned employees.
She said that as a part of intensifying internal controls, she had introduced a process of reviewing the payroll.
In the process, further discrepancies were identified. For instance, some employees would be paid 100% more than they should be paid as per their appointment letters.
Dlulane said during the audit for the 2010/11 financial year, the Auditor General had reported that the municipality was paying allowances according to an incorrect grading and, as part of their sampling, used the mayor's allowance to substantiate this.
As part of providing financial comments, the grading of the municipality was verified and the actual payroll was checked. I identified the discrepancies and the mayor's salary, or allowance, was affected.
As I was checking from the payroll system with the payroll clerk, we had to correct this immediately on the system. This was done to get accurate figures of how much is owing to the municipality, Dlulane said. This is an irregular expenditure and I could not as the acting Chief Financial Officer ignore it.
However, there is a process in terms of the [Municipal Finances Management Act] on how to handle irregular expenditure and I believe this will be handled as such, she said. The Mayor, in fact the whole council, should have been made aware of the correction of the discrepancies… at the same time the correction should have been made.
Dlulane emphasised that she had left the municipality during the time the payroll clerk was processing the payroll.
Her deployment expired on Friday 20 January 2012, she said.
I was last at the municipality on Friday 13 January 2012. Any changes on the salaries, including discrepancies thereof, should have been identified and corrected by the responsible people at the time the payroll was finalised.
This is but one of the reasons why payroll should be reviewed by Corporate Services, Human Resources and the Chief Financial Officer.
Explaining the regulations about adjusting salaries, Makana Municipality Spokesperson, Thandy Matebese, told Grocott's Mail: In cases where a salary adjustment is done due to an incorrect pay grade, it should at least require a courtesy call to the affected person. In his emailed response, he said, In cases where a deduction is in respect of a policy, for example, the affected person should be informed in writing. It is better to correct any incorrect payments to an employee by the end of February, as it has tax implications and tax rates normally differ from year to year.
Matebese said any discrepancies identified were being investigated and would be corrected in the February payroll.
