BREAKING NEWS – ‘Health, Edu need urgent intervention to prevent collapse’ – AG

Although the Provincial Government is satisfied with the audit outcomes for the previous financial year, the Premier’s spokesperson Kenny Mathivha stressed that concerns still existed over the departments of Health and Education due to their bad history.
This after the announcement of the national and provincial governments audit results by the Auditor-General (AG) of South Africa Kimi Makwetu today (Wednesday). Mathivha emphasised that the provincial audit report was expected to be tabled in a few weeks’ time and that there was no regression in Limpopo. He added that in the last meeting the Executive Council had with the AG, Premier Stan Mathabatha said that a lot still needed to be done for the Provincial Government to improve on its audits.
Some of the shocking findings in Makwetu’s report include that national fruitless and wasteful expenditure had increased by over 200% from the previous year to R2,5 billion while unauthorised expenditure increased by 38% from the previous year to R2,1 billion – 86% thereof as a result of overspending.
Makwetu said in a report that the improvement trend in Limpopo did not continue, with more auditees regressing than improving in the year under review. Despite the provincial leadership committing to implementing his office’s recommendations, Makwetu stressed that this was not done timeously and decisively, with auditees trying to resolve the previous year’s findings only at year-end or during the audit process.
The financial health Health and Education need urgent intervention to prevent the collapse of these key service delivery departments, Makwetu explained.

Story: ENDY SENYATSI
>>endy@observer.co.za