USAASA gets grilled - again

The Universal Service and Access Agency of SA (USAASA) came under fire for wasting money and failing to achieve targets, during the presentation of its annual report to Parliament.

The state-owned entity (SOE), which is meant to give all South Africans the opportunity to connect and study through ICT by 2020, has faced a barrage of issues in its recent past.

It took over a year to appoint a new CEO, after James Theledi was dismissed following allegations of sexual misconduct. In addition, former Parliamentary Committee on Communications chairman Ismail Vadi has previously questioned whether the agency should even exist at all.

Now it has been revealed that the agency did not deliver on five of its eight strategic objectives during the 2009/10 financial year, and the Auditor-General uncovered several instances of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, amounting to almost R1 million.

In addition, the AG highlighted that the agency has under-spent to the tune of R15.29 million and “as a consequence... has not achieved its objectives of making ICTs available, accessible and affordable to all South Africans”. Last year, the AG drew attention to irregular expenditure of R461 000, and fruitless expenditure of R122 000.

USAASA was being questioned during its presentation of its annual report to the Communications Parliamentary Portfolio Committee meeting, which was held last week, but only released yesterday.

“We will accelerate efforts to align the programmes of our state-owned entities with that of government, so as to ensure that SOEs remain the strategic implementing agencies of government,” said Padayachie during his first press briefing last Thursday.

USAASA's vision is, by 2020, to have created for “every man, woman and child, whether living in the remote areas of the Kalahari or in urban areas of Gauteng, opportunity to connect, speak, explore and study - using ICT”.

The agency was established under the Electronic Communications Act to promote the goals of universal access and universal service in the under-serviced areas of SA. It was set up as government's way of bridging the digital divide.

Its mandate includes facilitating access to telecommunications in under-serviced areas. It has also been tasked with providing subsidised set-top boxes to poor households that cannot afford them. It would be granted R180 million in the current year to provide decoders to 367 000 households.

However, during the last financial year to March, the agency failed to deliver on five of its eight strategic objectives, despite its recent restructuring and new business plan. The delays in delivery resulted in the agency asking National Treasury for permission to rollover R15.29 million of its budget.

It explains the delay is because of the need to engage in extensive consultations with local government authorities and communities, before access services could be delivered. In addition, says USAASA, it depends on other government departments' performance to ensure that its services are aligned with their priorities.

Total revenue for the 2009/10 financial year came to R33.7 million and USAASA spent R30.3 million, leaving it with a R3.3 million surplus. For the 2010/11 financial year, its budget is R66.7 million, of which only 31% was spent in the first six months to September.

Committee members raised concerns over USAASA's inability to deliver on its strategic objectives and questioned whether the agency is correctly positioned to effectively deliver on its mandate.

Members also wanted to know what action had been taken to sort out the irregular expenditure and fruitless and wasteful expenditure identified by the AG.

Democratic Alliance MP Niekie van den Berg questions whether such a large organisation was necessary and notes that too many projects are under way and few are finalised as planned. ANC MP Susan Tsebe concurs with Van den Berg, and says the committee wants to see an increase in the delivery of universal access services.

Committee chairman Eric Kholwane says USAASA needs to be in a position where it can operate effectively without undue reliance on the performance of other entities, as it plays an important role in providing access services to all communities in SA.

Board member Shaun Pather assured the committee that the board and senior management of USAASA shared its concerns over USAASA's failure to achieve its performance targets. He says the agency had learnt, from the many mistakes in the past, that it was essential to work closely with all the stakeholders involved.

The agency's presentation to the committee indicates that it is dealing with the issues raised by the AG over irregular, as well as fruitless and wasteful, expenditure. These include tightening the human resources policy, verbal warnings where procurement rules have been breached, and legal action to recover payments made where no services were rendered.

In addition, USAASA detailed plans to get projects back on track, which includes handing over 100 Cyberlabs to schools, deploying 100 public access centres in under-serviced areas, as well as developing an operational manual for the Universal Services Access Fund.

USAASA also detailed key infrastructure projects for the current year, which include broadband infrastructure roll-out projects, public access facilities and set-top box subsidies.

The agency also indicated that its previous operating model constrained it as it did not have an established partner base, could not take a leadership role in providing universal access, and business units were not properly co-ordinated.

Its presentation indicates that it intends to move from being an implementer to a facilitator in getting universal access off the ground, and will focus spending within a new operating model and strategy. USAASA outlined its 14-step roadmap for achieving these objectives.