IFP lambastes Health MEC for failing to attend meeting

THE Inkatha Freedom Party has lambasted the KZN MEC of Health Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo for his failure to attend a Health Portfolio Committee Meeting.

The party’s provincial spokesperson on Health, Mrs Ncamisile Nkwanyana  said the committee was expecting the MEC to attend the meeting to provide members with a report on the progress made in implementing the SAHRC recommendations into the status of the province’s Health Department.

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“Despite the importance of this meeting, MEC Dhlomo did not even bother to instruct the HOD to represent him,” she said adding that the Deparment had failed to address the oncology crisis and other health issues.

“This department is on a slippery slope and there are no strategies to turn things around. Furthermore, the report by the AG that was presented to the Portfolio Committee painted a gloomy picture about the Department of Health. The report identified a significant number of shortcomings that are indicative of a breakdown in internal controls that the department has failed to correct,” she said.

Nkwanyan said the Attorney General had been unable to determine the full extent of irregular expenditure of a reported R7.24 billion nd said effective steps had not been taken to prevent irregular expenditure as required by regulations.

“The Department also underspent its HIV/Aids conditional grant in contravention of section 71 of DoRA. The Department didn’t have adequate performance management systems to maintain records to enable a reliable reporting achievement as an appropriate audit could not be provided in some instances while in other cases the evidence provided didn’t agree to the recorded achievements,” she said.

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“The KZN Health Department is shambles. We have been questioning the competence and integrity of MEC Dhlomo and about the poor state of services offered by provincial hospitals but the MEC is turning a blind eye and our concerns are falling on deaf ears. We re-iterate our call that it is high time now for the ANC provincial leadership to make a hard decision of whether it save lives of people who are affected by the shortage of oncologists, and broken CT scanners in public hospitals or it prefers to allow Dr Sbongiseni Dhlomo to continue as MEC,” said Nkwanyana.

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