DA lays criminal complaint against ETDP SETA officials

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has on Thursday laid a criminal complaint against officials of the Education, Training and Development Practices (ETDP) Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) for being unable to substantiate more than R637 million in expenditure.

This follows the Auditor General (AG)'s qualified audit opinion for 2024/25 that flagged the missing records related to discretionary grants.

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While the chairperson of Parliament’s Higher Education Committee, Tebogo Letsie, said the DA is jumping the gun, the party’s national spokesperson and higher education representative, Karabo Khaukhau, said the AG’s findings can’t be second-guessed.

Khaukhau has approached the Cape Town Central Police Station to open a criminal case against all accounting officials who were in charge of the education and training SETA during the period under review.

She said ETDP SETA doesn’t even have an internal audit structure to assist the AG in her findings.

“The Public Finance Management Act makes it very clear that accounting authorities are supposed to flag [irregularities] with the Auditor General and be able to constitute consequence management for the misappropriation of public funds. This has not happened.”

But Letsie said that there may still be explanations for why the expenditure in question cannot be substantiated.

“It’s not necessarily true that there are no invoices. Irregular expenditure is an accounting term that says how you spent the money may not have been in the best interest of the SETA. But it doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t know where the money went.”

Khaukhau said Letsie is trying to cover up for African National Congress (ANC) cadres.

Parliament’s portfolio committee is due to probe the matter after the Easter break.