Daily Sun (September 17 2013) - THE GAUTENG Health Department can't show what happened to R12 billion over the last year.
The auditor-general's recent report uses big words like irregular expenditure, wasteful expenditure and insufficient evidence. BUT THE BEST WORD TO DESCRIBE THE GAUTENG HEALTH DEPARTMENT IS . . . USELESS!
The R12 billion represents about half of the department's overall budget of R26 billion. Auditor-General Terence Nombembe released his findings of the department's audit for the 2012/2013 financial year.
The findings include:
- Irregular expenditure of more than R5,7 billion. This represents money that was spent but not according to the prescribed regulations.
- Wasteful expenditure of more than R408 million.
- Insufficient evidence to support the department's claims that it received revenue amounting to over R2 billion from private patients and payments from neighbouring provinces.
- Insufficient audit evi-dence for departmental revenue amounting to R506 million.
- The department was unable to verify that they had paid over R2 billion in lawsuits because of inadequate control systems.
- R825 million spent on unsolicited tender bids.
- R120 million spent on infrastructure irregularities.
- R324 million overspent on goods and services.
- R125 million wasted on legal claims, R8 million wasted on purchasing expired medicine, as well as paying collective interest of R8 million on these two expenses.
The findings are said to have been presented to the provincial standing committee on public accounts last week. Speaking to Daily Sun, Jack Bloom, Gauteng Health spokesman for the Democratic Alliance, said someone needs to be held responsible.
"Every week there's something new. If it isn't power outages because of unpaid electricity bills, it's a shortage of equipment and complaints about rude staff," he said. "This department still has a long way to go in making the changes that will ensure effective spending on health services in Gauteng."
Bloom added that the turn- around strategy that was introduced does not seem to be working. "Their strategy is taking way too long to materialise," he said.
The auditor-general also accused the department of not meeting its contractual obligations to pay service providers in 30 days.
) Meanwhile, workers at Yusuf Dadoo Hospital in Krugersdorp have protested during lunch time every day since last week. This follows alleged irregular management appointments, corrupt tenders and equipment shortages.
Daily Sun has reported on many of the bad experiences SunReaders have had at Gauteng hospitals. Some of them are:
- Nurses holding up cellphones so that surgeons can see what they are doing while operating during a power failure when the emergency generators malfunctioned.
- Idah Phiri's face being burnt after allegedly being given epilepsy medicine for her swollen face.
- A girl (4) who was brain damaged, allegedly after a heart operation at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in 2011.
Commenting on the auditor-general's findings, Gauteng Health spokesman Simon Zwane said: "The situation is not as dire as painted by media reports. A close analysis would show that financial management has in fact improved this year."
Zwane added that discussions would continue with the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
See the Daily Sun mobi site for more on this and other stories....
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