A financial recovery plan has been formulated and approved to stabilise and clean up the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS).
Water and Sanitation acting director-general Mbulelo Tshangana and his team have committed to “clean up” the department through the effective implementation of the new financial recovery plan.
The plan, approved by Water and Sanitation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and the Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Portfolio, aims to stabilise the DWS and its water boards and decisively deal with the officials found to have transgressed and flouted the Public Finance Management Act.
“The financial health of the water and sanitation sector is challenged by a number of internal and external factors.
“Some the challenges we face include the negative financial outlook such as incidents of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure,” Tshangana said in a statement.
The plan outline priority interventions areas that include funding and budget management, which will entail the implementation of debt collection, a revenue enhancement strategy and a zero tolerance stance on overdraft.
Expenditure control, financial governance and accountability would also form part of the financial recovery plan.
“We are going to be implementing the accruals and payables management plan. What we will also be doing is to ensure we keep in check the fruitless and wasteful expenditure remedial measures report,” he continued.
A comprehensive reconciliation of assets and liabilities to enable maintenance of proper accounting records for management and reporting purposes is also going to be implemented.
Sisulu has since issued a directive that the plan be implemented with urgency to turn the department around so as to improve and enhance the delivery of services to the public, he concluded.