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South Africa: Telecoms-for-Poor Chief Suspended
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
19 May 2008
Posted to the web 19 May 2008
Lesley Stones
Johannesburg
THE chief financial officer of a government body tasked with taking telecommunication services to the poor has been suspended for alleged financial mismanagement.
The Universal Service and Access Agency of SA (Usaasa) has suspended Keith Keyes after an internal audit "brought to light certain findings of financial irregularities and mismanagement".
An investigation has been launched to uncover the extent of the transgressions and the degree to which internal controls were violated.
"Appropriate steps are being taken to ensure that a complete investigation is conducted and all the facts are established," chairwoman Cassandra Gabriel said. "Thereafter appropriate disciplinary measures will be taken against any transgressors."
Usaasa has earned notoriety for financial bungling, and the treasury no longer trusts it to spend money wisely. The agency is supposed to receive millions of rands every year that SA's telecoms operators contribute to the Universal Service Fund. But the treasury gives the agency only a fraction of that cash, due to its previous underspending and a lack of sound business plans. At other times it has spent money on ill-conceived projects that were not sustainable.
Gabriel said a significant amount of work had been done in the past year to turn around its operations. Policies and procedures had been put in place to help meet its mandate of providing services to the poor.
"It is very unfortunate that these policies have been flouted, but action will be taken and this will not deter us from achieving our objectives ," she said.
Last year more than R250m that companies had poured into the fund to take telephony services to rural areas was unused at the treasury. The telecoms companies contribute 0,2% of their annual revenue, and last year that raised R151m. Just R31m was given to the agency, and this year it has been given only R32m of the R180m that the industry will contribute.
Last year, Gabriel said the agency was working hard to prove it had put its chequered past behind it and was now sufficiently well run to be trusted with the cash. But in January, an internal source criticised the agency for spending R281000 on an advertorial in the British Airways in-flight magazine.
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Mismanagement has prevented the agency from having much effect in poor communities. Of SA's 27000 schools, only 7000 have internet access.
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