Government spends R188 million on Cuban services

The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure has become the latest government department to outsource services to Cubans.

Minister Patricia De Lille said the department would spend R27m on Cuban “technical advisers”, at R1,125,725 each per annum.

De Lille has since come to the defence of the employment of Cuban technical advisers, saying that her department had faced challenges in filling vacancies for technical skills.

She was responding to parliamentary questions from DA MP Ghaleb Cachalia on Wednesday.

Government departments have come under heavy criticism about their “preference” for Cuban services at the expense of local industry.

Recently the education sector spent at least R14 million on Cuban teachers, while the Department of Human Settlements spent R64m on engineers and the Department of Health a whopping R83m on doctors.

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This means that a total sum of R188 million has been or is to be paid to outsourced Cuban services.

In a written response, De Lille said that the department was hiring the Cubans because of their bilateral cooperation in technical and other programmes.

“As expressed in the joint declaration of the third session of the joint bilateral commission on economic, scientific, technical and business cooperation between the Republic of South Africa and the Republic of Cuba signed in September 2005,” De Lille said.

Labour union Solidarity in May served court papers on Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, for information about the imported Cuban engineers.

Sisulu was heavily criticised by South Africans as they questioned whether the country did not have competent engineers. Solidarity even sent the department a list of 120 South African engineers to replace the 24 Cuban engineers.