‘KZN Department of Health is in shambles’ – IFP

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

“We are very perturbed because as the committee members, we were expecting the MEC to attend the meeting to provide us with a report on what progress has been made in implementing the The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) recommendations into the status of the KZN Health Department,” said IFP KZN Provincial spokesperson on Health, Ncamisile Nkwanyana.

Nkwanyana said despite the importance of this meeting, Dhlomo did not even bother to instruct the head of department to represent him.

“This is actually taking us as members of the portfolio committee, for granted. His attitude is of great concern to many people who want to know about what is happening in the KZN Department of Health and how his department intends to make improvements on its poor performance.

“The Department of Health has 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,” she said.

Nkwanyana added that the report by the auditor general (AG) that was presented to them as members of 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.

“The AG was unable to determine the full extent of the irregular expenditure stated at R7.24 billion, and effective steps were not taken to prevent irregular expenditure as required by section 38 of the PFMA and Treasury regulations.

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

She said the KZN Health Department is shambles.

“We have been questioning the competence and integrity of 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 Dhlomo as MEC.”

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