Chairperson, the Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act mandates the Select Committee on Appropriations to monitor and evaluate conditional grant allocations to provinces and local government and the expenditure thereof.
The Select Committee on Appropriations held hearings with eight of the nine provincial education departments on the National School Nutrition Programme grant on 11 and 24 August 2010.
The Free State province was not in attendance and no prior notification or apology was forwarded to the committee. National Treasury was also invited to participate in the hearings and brief the committee on spending in the first-quarter for the conditional grant for the 2010-11 financial year. The National School Nutrition Programme grant aims to provide nutritious meals to learners.
National Treasury reported that the total conditional grant allocation to provinces amounted to R3,6 billion for the 2010-11 financial year. As of 30 June 2010, R1 billion was transferred to provinces, of which R593 million or 59,3% was spent in the first quarter of 2010-11. All the provinces underspent the conditional grant. However, there is an improvement in the aggregate rate of spending in comparison to the same period of the previous financial year.
Factors contributing to the underexpenditure of the National School Nutrition Programme grant by provinces included late approval in the awarding of tenders to service providers, late submission of invoices by suppliers and a large number of claims that had to be sent back to districts to be corrected and resubmitted. The system which is used to capture and validate claims crashed, resulting in delays, and the North West province experienced delays caused by the process of converting from the Walker Financial System to the Basic Accounting System, Bas.
The committee noted that there is a challenge with respect to the characterisation of schools in Mpumalanga, as schools within the same area are classified with different quintiles and this leads to some learners being excluded from accessing meals.
Mpumalanga province uses the grant funding to compensate employees. Internal processes within provincial departments contributed to the late payment of service providers. There is a shortage of water in schools which leads to the poor irrigation of vegetable gardens and, therefore, results in gardens being unsustainable. The Select Committee on Appropriations recommends that the NCOP considers that the national Department of Basic Education should co-ordinate the review of the quintiles and reclassify schools that were previous wrongly excluded from the nutrition programme.
The National Treasury should scrutinise why unauthorised expenditure, when you use grant funds to pay salaries, was approved by Mpumalanga province. Appropriate action and penalties should be taken in this regard. National and provincial Treasury should provide support to provincial departments that are experiencing supply chain management challenges, for example, poor tender management that has led to underspending by certain provincial departments.
The provincial department of agriculture should assist schools that have vegetable gardens and encourage other schools to develop vegetable gardens as part of the nutrition programme.
The provincial departments of water affairs should assist schools that have a shortage of water by providing alternative strategies in preserving water for irrigation of vegetable gardens. National Treasury and provincial departments should provide detailed progress reports relating to the expenditure and service delivery progress successes, challenges and any interventions necessary regarding the National School Nutrition Programme grant.
Debate concluded.
Question put: That the Report be adopted.
IN FAVOUR: Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, North West, Western Cape.
Report accordingly adopted in accordance with section 65 of the Constitution.