National Treasury has come under fire for allegedly wasting R1 billion spent on an integrated financial management system (IFMS) which it failed to implement after more than a decade, The Times reported on Wednesday.
Treasury reportedly appeared before Parliament's standing committee on public accounts on Tuesday to account for the loss. The IFMS was reportedly supposed to integrate various functions within Treasury, including payroll and supply chain management to reduce costs.
The DA's Tim Brauteseth asked MPs what Treasury had to show for the R1 billion spent.
"We had a situation where we spent over a billion rand and we discovered that we have a system that doesn't work. Can I ask is there anyone in the room who was involved in the planning in 2005? Clearly your planning ability has failed woefully. What do we have in our hands for R1-billion? What have we got?" asked Brauteseth.
He was reportedly told there was no one present who was directly involved in the project in 2005.
Themba Godi, the committee's chairperson, reportedly said Treasury could have implemented the system better.
"A billion rand down the line we had to go back to the starting blocks and having learnt the lessons from there thought want to do things differently and better," he said.
According to IOL, Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane said a probe was underway to determine what went wrong.
Gigaba said a team was being put together to conduct the investigation.
"I take full responsibility for what has happened in order to ensure the problems here are properly addressed. I hope we don't come back to Scopa again to face the grilling we faced today," Gigaba reportedly said.