Transnet has asked government for a huge capital injection and to write off R60 billion of its R130 billion debt. To name a few, Eskom, SAA and the SABC have done it for years.
Corruption is doubtless a major issue in their travails, but so too is sheer incompetence at operational, managerial and board levels. After all, it lies at the root of flawed business models, drives up costs (and therefore tax) and often intersects with corruption.
Some examples are instructive. The SABC recently reported on the Auditor General (AG) Tsakani Maluleki’s concerns about the inordinate use of consultants at municipalities. The figure spent on these consultants (who often fail to fix the mess and contribute to irregular expenditure) has increased by R1 billion compared to last year. And it grew from R100 million to R1.6 billion in a decade. They are performing basic accounting functions that staff should be able to perform.
Moreover, the value of civil claims against the police has risen by 511% over the same period, Netwerk24 reported. There are pending cases worth R108 billion pending and this exceeds the police’s budget of R102.5 billion for the current year. Dr Johan Burger, a policing expert, says the police paid out R647.9 million in the 2022/’23 financial year, compared to R106 million in 2011/’12. He says notwithstanding this increase due to, among other reasons, illegal arrests, disciplinary hearings have dropped by 67% - a perverse situation that arguably causes and exacerbates this black hole.
The same goes for the health sector. An amusing yet scandalous example is how Matthew Lani, a fake doctor without matric, gave medical advice on TikTok while sauntering through the Helen Joseph Hospital in Johannesburg. After much publicity, he has now been arrested but he is far from alone. The BBC reported that, according to the Department of Health, 124 fake doctors have been made arrested over the last three years.
Much like police officers, people’s lives often depend on doctors doing their jobs and the wrong treatment could kill them instead of saving their lives. Also, these charlatans occupy a position that should have been filled with a suitably qualified person. South Africa is losing real doctors at an alarming rate – something which we can ill-afford – while this is going on.
Legal scholar Larisse Prinsen writes in an academic article that medicolegal claims due to malpractice and negligence have risen significantly since 2007. In 2020/’21 alone, R6.5 billion was awarded in these claims. The Eastern Cape Health Department has pending claims worth almost R40 billion against it and paid out R921 million during 2020/’21 due to medical negligence. Of course, there are some unfortunate legitimate mistakes made by qualified personnel and many litigious lawyers are simply too happy to make a buck, but this is happening too often and became too gargantuan to simply impute to accidents and fatigue.
While this lack of accountability and inability in government have many causes (not least, cadre deployment), but government has failed to adequately train and equip its staff to fulfil their mandate. The government is overloaded with unnecessary and unqualified managers and administrative personnel that drive up the ever-growing salary bill and size of government entities, at the expense of equipment and technical personnel.
There is furthermore an entire ecosystem that sustains this incompetence. Who appoints these clowns in the first place? And how did Lani get inside the hospital to record his videos? These are questions that need some serious answers because it indisputably involves corruption in many cases.
Incompetence and a lack of accountability in the government are not only affecting mandated service delivery but it is costing us money that could have been more prudently spent. The Eastern Cape Health Department has started appointing more lawyers and legal experts to stave off the soaring legal challenges it faces, instead of appointing more medical staff and purchasing equipment. This bane is often overlooked when blame is apportioned for government’s failures.
Like corruption (which at least possesses some metrics and price tags with which to gauge it), it is hard, if not impossible, to quantify the direct and indirect havoc that these appointments cause and the funds that are squandered. What is even more disconcerting, is that like corruption, it is a grave threat to the country’s feasibility and is largely preventable.
Dr Brink is an entrepreneur, business consultant and independent analyst based in Paarl.
