Gauteng blows almost R10 billion on irregular expenditure

The Gauteng provincial government managed to blow a total of R9,7 billion in fruitless, wasteful, and irregular expenditure during the 2020/2021 financial year.

This was apparently revealed in a report by the Auditor-General, which looked into the overall audit outcomes for all provincial departments, according to a statement by the DA.

The DA says that the report found the worst offending departments and their irregular expenditure to be:

• Department of Health – R3 921 800 000,00
• Department of Roads and Transport – R2 013 200 000,00
• Department of Infrastructure Development – R1 119 900 000,00
• Department of Education – R922 900 000,00
• Department of Social Development – R683 000 000,00

Most of the health department’s irregular expenses were the result of non-compliance with Treasury regulations on competitive bidding and dodgy purchases of Personal Protective Equipment.

Roads and Transport’s irregular expenditure was mostly related to the extension of bus subsidy contracts and other contracts without necessary approval, while Infrastructure failed to comply with supply chain management processes with regard to Covid-related infrastructure projects.

Education’s failings were mostly also Covid-related, but also included failure to properly manage lease contracts, while social development’s failings were related to food parcels.

Also Read: SIU to freeze accounts of decontamination companies contracted by Gauteng education dept

Fruitless and wasteful expenditure increased from R103 million to R378 million.

The three worst offending departments were:

• Department of Health – R244 600 000,00
• Department of Human Settlements – R118 400 000,00
• Department of Infrastructure Development – R22 600 000,00

Once again most of Health’s fruitless and wasteful expenditure was related to procurement of PPE, while Human Settlements was mainly due to interest charges.

The DA bemoaned the waste, saying: “It is disheartening to see that while our country is trying to recover from the effects of the hard lockdown imposed last year, which led to many homes losing multiple income streams, that our government has no consideration in how taxpayers’ money is spent.”