DA calls on Parliament to hold FS Department of Health to account for financial mismanagement
19 November 2018
The DA will write to the Parliament Portfolio Committee Chairperson on Health, Ms. Mary-Ann Dunjwa, requesting her to summon the Free State Department of Health Administrator and Free State MEC of Health, Montseng Tsiu, to come and appear before the committee to account for financial mismanagement in the department.
This follows the recent dismal report by the Auditor-General which found that in the 2017/18 financial year, the Department accumulated R820million in irregular expenditure, R3.1 million in fruitless expenditure and R141 million in unauthorized expenditure.
The department is not only under crippling financial mismanagement it is also currently under administration, and has been named by the Auditor-General as the highest contributor in the monies spent irregularly in the province.
In the previous financial year, the Provincial government spent R1.5billion on lawsuits and R1.8 billion defending itself on malpractice cases. This money could have been better spent improving service delivery in the healthcare system, which is facing increasing pressure from crumbling infrastructure and staff shortages.
According to a Parliamentary oversight report released in August 2018, Free State Hospitals are dire need of space as facility rooms are too small, hospitals suffer from poor maintenance, resulting in structural defects.
Nothing exposes the blatant financial mismanagement in the department than its reckless procurement processes. In 2016 they imported 6 mobile clinic buses only to register them in 2017. These buses could have been procured locally to support local industry and create jobs.
Worse still, the department entered into a maintenance agreement with a service provider amounting to R222 000 per month to maintain the buses, further leading to more waste of the people’s money. This behaviour is encouraged by the failing ANC-led government’s culture of unaccountability and consequence management.
This crisis can directly be traced back to former Premier and current failing ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule, under whose tenure government departments were used as cash cows to fund political activities and enrich his buddies. Under Ace, the department entered into a contract with Mediosa, which is a Gupta linked company that cost the department R24 million.
In 2019, a DA government will ensure that people’s money is spent on service delivery and improving people’s lives. Anyone implicated in corruption must face the full wrath of the law.
Issued by Patricia Kopane, DA Free State Premier Candidate, 19 November 2018
