KZN Premier should deal decisively with R12.4 billion irregular expenditure

22 November 2019

The IFP believes that the KZN Premier Sihle Zikalala should prove himself by decisively dealing with the irregular expenditure in KZN Province which Auditor-General indicated that it was the highest of all the provinces and more than that of national government.

The previous figure for the province was R9.8 billion. This was despite the AG’s constant recommendations to leadership to take steps to avoid the abuse of supply chain management legislation.

The Premier must lead by example and show how serious he is about making this province functional again. His leadership capabilities are being tested on how well he will do in addressing this issue of irregular expenditure, because this is totally unacceptable.

We as the IFP, expect the Premier to harshly act against incompetent Heads of Departments and accounting officers who are constantly refusing to do their jobs accordingly. Some of these HODs are investigated for corruption and other charges but the Premier seems to be hellbent in protecting them. An example is Nokuthula Khanyile, the former HOD of KZN Social Development who is currently being investigate by the Hawks but instead of acting against her, the Premier saw it fit to dump her at the Agri-Business Development Agency. Something that clearly indicates that the Hon Premier is compromised and cannot execute his duties diligently.

We urge the Premier to take major steps against departments that incurred irregular expenditure. This province needs good governance to function again. The time for lip service is over. Talking only about changing things around but not implementing good policies and consequence management will not make any difference. Instead we will keep regressing in our financial health as a province.

The Premier Sihle Zikalala, said the Provincial Government will enforce Operation Clean Audit drive, which will "ensure" consequence management and accountability in all departments that incurred irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. We want to see officials in the Provincial Departments do things differently in this current financial year.

Because officials discard rules and regulations intentionally, as they are fully aware that there will be no consequences against them. This is due to the same government who has for many years allowed officials to moonlight because it had no appetite of taking drastic measures. Officials did and still continue to do as they please. 2019/20 mid-term budget performances indicate that nothing seem to be changing.

The IFP urges the Premier to ensure that all the departments must provide implementable strategies that will deal with officials who contravene supply chain management policies and create unauthorised, irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

We cannot allow this wastefulness to continue. The billions already wasted could have gone a long way to deliver much need basic services to the poorest communities in our province.

The IFP calls for robust implementation of the Public Audit Act no. 25 of 2004, as amended by Public Audit Amendment Act 5 of 2018, as this will compel Accounting Officers to act accordingly. The AG must use his new powers as given to his office and take direct action against the offending accounting officers.

Issued by Blessed Gwala, IFP Chief Whip in the KZN Legislature, 22 November 2019