DA receives confidential RTMC audit report - writes to public protector over serious irregularities
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has obtained a copy of a seven month, R13.3-million independent financial audit of the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) carried out by Deloitte and Touche. The confidential financial audit was completed in September 2009, and provides yet further concrete evidence that Ranthoko Rakgoale, the CEO of the RTMC, needs to be suspended pending the completion of a full investigation into the problematic state of affairs at the RTMC.
In light of this report, supported by other information revealed by whistleblowers and obtained from the annual report, the DA will be writing to the Public Protector to ask for an investigation into the board.
First, the confidential audit report reveals that the CFO and CEO approved "salary increases in excess of approved limits". Although the report does not say which members of staff benefited from these salary increases, on examination of the RTMC's 2008/09 annual report, it is revealed that in 2008 the non-executive directors' total salaries amounted to R287 262. In 2009 this had escalated to R720 170, despite there being two fewer members.
The board also seems to have approved a 389% increase in the RTMC's executive directors' salaries; from R647 090 in 2008 to R3 164 510 in 2009.
Any increase in salaries should be approved within defined performance grounds, as is best practice. But the audit report's finding that there was "...no measurement of the performance of the board/committees" makes it clear that no such considerations were taken into account.