Auditor-General finds health department breached regulations

NELSPRUIT – The recently redeployed head of department (HOD) of health has received a scathing report from the Auditor-General (AG).

Lowvelder reported in September that Mr Richard Mnisi was removed from the health department and appointed as the programme manager of the municipal support programme at the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta).

The AG’s report for the department’s 2012/13 financial year has since been tabled to the portfolio committee. It found that Mnisi, who took the position of HOD in 2011, had failed to comply with a range of laws and regulations.

The report found that in terms of the Public Finance Management Act, Mnisi failed to prepare the financial statements submitted for auditing in accordance with prescriptions, which were not fully supported by documentation; failed to implement proper control systems to safeguard assets, failed to take effective steps to prevent irregular and wasteful expenditure; and failed to maintain internal control of performance management.

The department also failed to provide national and provincial treasury with quarterly performance reports on the hospital revitalisation grant and health infrastructure grant, according to the report.

Mr James Masango, chief whip of the DA who is on the health portfolio committee, said the former HOD must be held to account for his actions. He said Mnisi was not called before the committee when it sat on October 29. He called on the committee chairman, Ms P. Ngobeni, to call Mnisi to appear when the committee sat again on November 7.

“This has had a debilitating effect on public health care, where people are forced to seek medical treatment from understaffed health facilities with overworked doctors and nurses, without working equipment to perform examinations, may or may not have the required medication for treatment, or have enough food to feed patients while in hospitals,” he said.