GAUTENG HEALTH DEPARTMENT FAILS TO VERIFY QUALIFICATIONS

The Gauteng Health Department failed to verify qualifications and experience for 367 newly appointed employees.

This is one of the findings of the latest Public Service Commission report on the department for the 2015/16 financial year.

According to the PSC, the department only verified criminal records and financial suitability in respect of 330 of the 367 appointed employees, but did not verify any qualifications or previous experience.

This is a major failing as false qualifications in the health service could be a matter of life and death.

Other findings of concern include the following:

- The Anti-Corruption Unit is not capacitated and does not have a budget and human resources for minimum anti-corruption requirements.

- An amount of R509 597 was lost in finalized cases of financial misconduct, but only R40 334 of this was recovered.

- No criminal charges were laid in any of the 91 finalized cases of financial misconduct.

- Only four out of 13 cases reported to the National Anti-Corruption Hotline were finalized.

- 55% of disciplinary cases took later than the prescribed 60 days to finalize.

- There is no integrated ethics management and implementation plan with clear activities and milestones.

These findings show that basic management problems continue to plague this department, which is also not doing enough to expose and prevent corruption.

I hope that the PSC findings and recommendations are speedily and fully implemented.

Statement issued by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 9 November 2016