Health Department wastes R1.3 billion of health budget
12 October 2022
Note to editors: Please find attached soundbite by Michele Clarke MP.
Yesterday, the Auditor-General (AG) of South Africa highlighted the Department of Health's irregular expenditure of R1.3 billion the past financial year – an increase of 42% from the year before.
To put that into perspective: according to the Department’s annual report, the total expenditure for employee compensation in 2021/22 was R 848 million. That means the Department could have completely eradicated the personnel shortages if it simply rooted out corruption and implemented effective monitoring systems.
By far most of the wasted money is due to a variety of issues pertaining to the non-compliance of procurement processes, supply-chain management (SCM) prescripts and contract monitoring controls.