KZN’s financial challenges don’t lie within Treasury
24 November 2016
HAVING just completed the close out budget allow me to concur with both MEC Scott and Honourable Nkosi, that the KZN treasury is one of the top performing treasuries in the country and deserves to take the credit for the exemplary role that it plays in controlling the province’s finances. One shudders to think what the situation would be if we didn’t have such an effective treasury.
KZN’s financial challenges don’t lie within treasury. They lie with the provincial departments, public entities and certain senior officials who either lack the capacity or the political will to effectively implement provincial budgets. Or perhaps it’s a case of giving treasury ‘the bird’. Why else would you have departments and entities that continually ignore legislation when it comes to budget control and why is it always the same serial offenders?
Let me supply this House with clear evidence of this starting with Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTEA) under the watch of MEC Zikhalala. The department made transfer payments of R15.8 million in the first six months of 2016/17 in respect of various events in programme 2, 3, 6 and 7 without Provincial Treasury approval. This in contravention of Treasury Regulation 6.3.1(b). The department wanted to undertake virements and introduce new transfer payments for two weeks before the end of 2015/16 to reduce its level of underspending. This is nothing more than fiscal dumping and, in the words of the Treasury report, an indication of poor planning by the department.
Treasury did not approve the requested virements as some of these events were considered ‘nice to haves’ and not in the spirit of cost-cutting and were considered to be exorbitant. So while we have a department with a R2.7 billion budget that should drive local economic projects it would rather spend money on things like, VIP catering, couches, ottomans, luxury vehicles and promotional material - to say nothing of the R20million that this department wants to spend on the Metro FM Awards, certainly not a priority in the current economic climate. One can only hope and pray that the now infamous Hlaudi Moetsoneng will not get his grubby paws on this obscene amount of money. This department continually, year in and year out, continues with shifts and virements. Every year the MEC and senior departmental officials give the commitment that this procedure will cease, which of course the mid-year budget proves is certainly not happening.
In Tuesday’s debate on the 2015/16 close out report we heard about the challenges and delays in filling key and critical posts in certain departments, ultimately impacting on the capacity and departmental programmes just too mention a few:
- Social Development no CFO
- Health no CFO
- Agriculture 2 CFO’s
- 115 critical posts in social development
- More than 100 ranger posts in Ezemvelo.
This challenge was again highlighted in the mid-year hearings with the blame- game playing itself out as departments blamed Treasury and the Premiers office while departments were meanwhile accused of not submitting all the required information when applying for the approval of key posts. On further investigation it was discovered that the system used is the old and outdated paper application, with hard files moving across the departmental networks. It cannot be acceptable in the 21stcentury there is still no on line system to fulfil this task so that if all the required information is not completed the application cannot be submitted and processed. This would also give a clear indication of where the problem is and put an end to the blame game. I am pleased to report that this has been suggested to Treasury and that an electronic system will be developed to effectively fulfil this task.
The mid-year reports highlighted another serious challenge that is again symptomatic of poor management and the lack of capacity. This is the continued challenge of inaccurate staffing numbers and the lack of staffing controls in departments such as Education, CoGTA and Health. It came to light during the hearings that the department of education was paying for non-existing staff members. The DA raised concern that personnel numbers in Education had fluctuated from 105 617 to 106 728, between April and September this year! On further interrogation it became evident that there remain huge challenges in the department as it was revealed that in certain cases staff members who had died, resigned or retired still remained on the pay roll of the department and in some cases this took many months to identify and rectify.
Treasury has for some time now requested the Department of Education to submit a Human Management Resource plan to try and resolve what has now become an ongoing challenge in Education, a challenge that ultimately has a negative impact on education as Treasury will no longer approve the filling of vacancies within the department.
We are all aware that our country and particularly KZN is currently experiencing one of the worst droughts in history. Yet we have a department which, under the leadership of MEC Dube-Ncube, that has managed to only spend R7million of R100 million allocated for drought relief. This very same MEC rubbishes Treasury’s claim that only R7 million has been spent. This very same MEC then informs the finance committee that she has a document detailing apparent expenditure, yet when approached for a copy of this document to substantiate her claim we are informed that the document has to be sensitized. This while an ANC member of the committee was seen with this unsensitised document.
This behaviour can only lead to speculation. Why was Mhlathuze Water given the bulk of this work? Are we admitting that our provincial departments lack the capacity to roll out these projects? Or is it perhaps that there is a link with Dudu Myeni? You join the dots.
Issued by Francois Rodgers, DA KZN Spokesperson on Finance, 24 November 2016
