The parliamentary portfolio committee on communications has expressed its concern at the budgetary management of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).

“In regard to Icasa, the committee noted with concern its none achieved targets and the misalignment. That’s why the money was spent, but targets were not reached,” said committee chair Joyce Moloi-Moropa on the recommendations to parliament on Tuesday.

Icasa recently told the committee in its annual report that it had underspent R29m of its annual budget, contributing to an organisational performance score of 29%.

The committee also pointed to the vacancy list of 80 at the regulator which had a negative impact on service delivery.

“[We] noted with concern the high number of vacant posts as the regulator and also noted the challenges face by the community media sector,” said Moloi-Moropa.

The auditor-general found a lack of proper financial controls at Icasa resulted in irregular expenditure of R30,2m while fruitless and wasteful expenditure hit R2,3m at the entity.

“It’s either because there was no consequent management, the position was vacant, or the person was not performing in that position,” audit executive Alice Muller recently told members of the committee at the time in her presentation regarding the financial inconsistency. — Fin24