Unaccountability further cripples FS Department of Health

7 November 2018

The Free State  Department of Health’s failure to implement the continuous Auditor General’s annual recommendations regarding consequence management continues to drive it into an even deeper hole of self-destruction.

In a Public Accounts Committee meeting held yesterday, further revelations ware made of the department’s mismanagement of finances and the inability to hold those responsible accountable.

The Department of Health was one of the highest contributors in the massive amount of money spent irregularly in the province. The department found itself again with an unqualified audit outcome. In the 2017/18 financial year, they accumulated an amount of R820 million in irregular expenditure; R3.1 million in fruitless and wasteful expenditure and R141 million in unauthorized expenditure.

Even though the department is under administration, it continues to fail at managing its finances, further crippling the department’s ability to deliver vital health services to the people of the Free State. In the previous financial year, the department spent R1.5 billion in lawsuits. In the 2017/18 financial year, the department was defendant in malpractice cases that amounted to R1.8 billion.

Each financial year the department commences with a chunk of its budget gone after paying previous financial years’ debt and accruals. Their current accruals are almost R600 million. The back paying of accruals affected 15% of the department’s current budget, leaving them to function on a budget 85%.

The Department of Health has poor contract management and inadequate monitoring of service delivery. This is evident in the department’s procurement of 6 mobile clinic buses that were procured in 2016. These buses were only registered in 2017 and started functioning recently. The maintenance agreement between the department and the service provider required that R37 000 be paid monthly, per bus. The department spent R222 000 in maintenance for six busses per month, a total of R2.4 million in the past 11 months. These buses had to be imported, bringing to question the rationale of this procurement as they could have been procured in the country and cost the department far less.

Procurement of buses was clearly not feasible as the buses were bought with no trained personnel in the first place and could only be put to use a year after being procured. These buses are stationed at the Psychiatric complex in Bloemfontein and other facilities, yet are said to be in use. This also means that they need to travel all around Free State weekly, further costing the department. This is simply a wasteful endeavour.

The department has a complete disregard for efficient financial planning and management. It has an outright culture that shows absolutely no accountability and consequence management.

The Department admits to having financial challenges. The Auditor General’s Report highlighted some of the department’s financial losses as also being due to overpayment to service providers. The department was in a contractual agreement with Gupta linked Mediosa, which cost the department R24 million before misconduct was identified. The overpayment was clearly due to the lack of adequate monitoring of the service provider by the department. We hope that this was not deliberate.

The Free State Department of Health is in a continued state of chaos, with its inability to hold its people to task and financial mismanagement goes unaccounted for. It is this culture that the government has created that severely hampers the ability of the provincial department to deliver effective services to the people of the province.

The DA firmly believes in holding those responsible for the hindrance of services for our people to task. Where the DA governs, we maintain audit outcomes that resonates financial management, accountability and monitoring. Under the DA government we aim to maximise the impact of service delivery programmes in order improve the lives of the people in the Free State province.

Issued by David van Vuuren, DA Free State Spokesperson on Public Accounts and Finance, 7 November 2018