By BAKANG MOKOTO

22 January 2025- The Department of Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism (DEDECT) said it has strengthened its monitoring and oversight mechanisms to intervene at the North West Parks and Tourism (NWPTB). This comes after the entity’s failure to pay employee salaries, despite receiving its quarterly financial allocation from the department at the beginning of the fourth quarter of the current financial year.

The North West MEC for Department of Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism (DEDECT), Bitsa Lenkopane said they have consistently released the quarterly allocation to the entity as per the legislation, with the last of the year released earlier following the entity’s request. Lenkopane said failure to pay salaries might be a bad omen brewing a regress on the department’s employed mechanism to right the financial wrongs and deficiencies that adversely affected the entity’s audit outcomes.

“This is a risk and the entity’s financial management needs more attention. It is inconceivable that the entity is unable to pay salary at the beginning of the fourth quarter, while the funds have already been transferred.

“This appears to be a regular occurrence, but it needs to change. The risk of not paying salaries is not a new phenomenon in the entity. This situation has been prevalent in the previous administration dating back as far as 2022,” she said.

Lenkopane further said the records prove that the entity has failed to generate and or sustainability manage revenue for its benefit. She added that this situation cannot continue unattended, especially in this new administration.

“The department is left with no choice but to put magnifying glasses on the financial affairs of the Board. I have since instructed the department’s Accounting Officer, where necessary, to invoke the Treasury Regulation 8.4.2.

“It gives him powers to withhold a transfer payment or grant, other than division of revenue, if he is satisfied that the entity is failing to meet certain financial conditions, and no financial value is realized,” said Lenkopane.

She said this provision of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) applies to all the entities. Lenkopane said the department has begun the process of putting measures to strengthen the oversight on the entities.

“This is to help steer the ailing entities to the right direction. A task team consisting of financial experts and auditors from DEDECT will be appointed to look closely into the finances of the entity.

“The team will also be mandated to open all the reports written by the experts that were appointed by the Board of Directors during the 6^th administration and to implement their recommendations,” she said.

Lenkopane said the NWPT Board of Directors has, in its first meeting of 2025, drafted a Revenue Enhancement Plan and resolved to appoint a subcommittee to look into Revenue Enhancement, and exploit the opportunities in biodiversity economy. She said her department is in full support of this initiative in quest for diversification to explore closely into these particular untapped and sustainable biological resources, altogether with their markets for contribution into the Provincial Gross Domestic Product.

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