Linda Ensor
14 December 2006
Cape Town — The Democratic Alliance (DA) has slammed the payment of performance bonuses to National Development Agency (NDA) staff despite the financial mismanagement and alleged corruption in the organisation set up to fund poverty- alleviation projects.
Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya revealed in written replies to DA questions in Parliament this week that 110 NDA staff members were awarded performance bonuses totalling R1m in the 2005-06 financial year. DA social development spokesman Mike Waters said he would write to Skweyiya to ask him to insist that the NDA review the payment of these bonuses, which were made despite auditor-general Shauket Fakie's negative findings about the financial management of the organisation. Waters said Fakie's report indicated that the financing of NDA projects was in a state of "complete chaos, and possibly massive corruption".
"Finances were in such a state of disarray that it was impossible to say what had happened to much of the money destined for poverty allevia-tion projects, but the possibility of misappropriation of funds on a large scale cannot be excluded.
"A culture of rewarding fat-cat complacency among those who are tasked with uplifting the poor cannot be allowed to continue. It amounts to nothing less than corruption to pay bonuses to those who do not deserve them," he said.
Skweyiya's reply indicated that in the 2002-03 financial year, R785640 was paid out to all staff. Waters said this was a "scandal" as there had been no performance evaluation. In 2003 both former NDA CEO Delanie Mth-embu and chief operating officer Pule Zwane were charged with financial mismanagement. Skweyiya said the bonus payments had been made in terms of a "clearly defined and applied performance management system".
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