- Some of the suspended judges had requested that the overpayments be deducted from their salaries
- AoJ failure to respond inconvenienced judges- Audit report
QUEEN MOSARWE
A confidential Final Internal Audit Report on the judicial crisis pertaining to judges’ housing allowance has highlighted the continued failure to take action by the Administration of Justice (AoJ) on correspondences from the judges to deduct overpayment of the housing allowances at the centre of their suspension from the bench.
According to the audit report, the delays or non action by AoJ were evident, particularly when judges Monametsi Gaongalelwe and Key Dingake had written requesting that the deductions from their salaries be effected. This failure, according to the report, greatly affected the judges’ convenience and their free housing privileges. It further points to poor record keeping and misfiling by AoJ which made it difficult to locate documents as and when they were required for reference, a state the audit team says also adversely affected completion of the audit exercise.
Last year August, the Judicial Services Commission suspended High Court judges Key Dingake, Mercy Garekwe, Modiri Letsididi Rainer Busang after Chief Justice Maruping Dibotelo reported them to the police for the criminal offense of receiving housing allowances they were not eligible to . In addition to last year’s four suspended judges, the audit has revealed that Justice Terrence Rannowane and former Justice Unity Dow, now Minister of Basic Education have also in the past received housing allowance they were not eligible for.
The AoJ report further revealed that in some cases, Judges wrote to the department (AoJ) alerting them of the overpayments but AoJ failed to respond as in the case of Justices Gaongalelwe and Dingake.
In the case of Justice Gaongalelwe, he was was paid P104 444.00 over a period of 22 months- from February 2004 to March 2005 and from August 2007 to March 2008 . The report states that when transferred from Lobatse High Court to Francistown, he stayed at Marang Hotel.
“ On the 24th February 2004 a letter referenced PR 542 I was written to Marang Hotel by the Registrar and Master confirming authorization for Hon. Gaongalelwe to continue staying in the hotel until further notice,” the report reveals. The audit team reveals that they could however not establish from the records duration of his stay at the hotel. However, the team state that when interviewed, he confirmed to having stayed at the hotel for the entire duration of his stay in Francistown where he was transferred back to Lobatse more than a year later in April 2005. It was only upon examination of salary records by the team that it transpired that the Judge was paid housing allowance from February 2004 to March 2005 while staying at Marang Hotel.
“The audit team requested for records regarding allocation of accommodation to Hon Judge in order to reconcile payments made to him during the period , to no avail,” the report adds. Gaongalelwe was however allocated an institutional house in August 2007, and paid housing housing allowance from February 2004 to March 2005 and from and from August 2007 to March 2008. The report states that on the 10th April 2008, Gaongalelwe wrote to AoJ , requesting that his housing allowance overpayments be recovered from his salary effective May 2008.
“Deductions of P1000 per month were made from May 2008 to September 2011.The last deduction of P304.00 was made in October 2011,” the audit further states , adding that a total of P41 304.00 was deducted from Gaongalelwe and that a balance of P63 140.00 is outstanding.
With regards to Dingake, the report states that availed information showed that he occupied an institutional house in Lobatse in 2006 and that he was paid housing allowance while staying in the institutional house from March 2006 to January 2007.
“Hon. Judge Dingake wrote a memo on the 1 February 2007 to Department of Personnel requesting deduction from his salary, P600.00 per month effective February 2007,” the audit reads in part. It adds that he further wrote another minute to the Director on the 8th February 2007 to request deduction of the allowance overpayment as agreed effective March 2007. “However, there is no record that confirms recovery of the overpayment as proposed by Hon. Dingake,” the report reads, adding that Dingake was also paid housing allowance when he was allocated an institutional house in Phakalane.
The report recommended that recovery of housing allowance overpayment to judges who were not eligible should be effected immediately and that management should ensure that monthly reconciliation of salary payments be carried out to detect and prevent payments to no-eligible officers. Furthermore, the audit team recommends that casualty returns be issued to terminate housing allowance for all the judges who are not eligible immediately.“Disciplinary action should be taken against officers who fail to take action, resulting in Government incurring unnecessary losses,” the audit report concludes.