MPs fume as billions go to waste

The frustration of MPs with inadequate answers from government officials reached boiling point when Parliament’s public spending watchdog, the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), began its hearings into irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure by state departments. At the meeting with senior public servants last week, details emerged of widespread contraventions of public finance laws by provincial health and education officials, affecting billions of rand in infrastructure projects. One MP was so outraged by the answers – or lack of them – that he suggested officials be arrested on the spot for failing to adhere to the Public Finance Management Act.

“Some of these officials accounting for these millions and millions they are unable to convince us about, they warrant (being) arrested. It is high time,” ANC MP Godfrey Thobejane fumed after yet another official failed to explain the misuse and waste of funds meant for schools and clinics. “(Officials) do it knowingly. This is gross negligence… this is a perpetual situation. One way or another, it must come to a stop.” Officials were summoned to appear before Scopa to explain what they had done to rectify problems identified in a performance audit by the auditor-general in August. The report sampled 247 infrastructure projects involving about R6.6 billion – half the 2010/11 infrastructure budgets for these departments – and made findings “that require urgent corrective action by government”.

Among the problems identified were that planning for projects was so poor that in many cases it “gave rise to unused and underutilised infrastructure”. “A robust procurement system was not consistently applied, thus compromising transparency, ac-countability and economy with which decisions and (budgetary) commitments were made,” the report said. In cases where illegally appointed contractors had to be replaced midway through projects, costs soared from R63m to R109m in education and from R536m to R850.3m in health, the report said. It also found that 70 percent of all the sampled projects “were completed late or were still being constructed although the contractual completion dates had passed”. On average, projects were 22 months overdue.

In the Eastern Cape, education projects planned for completion within nine months were now 53 months behind schedule. When the report was released in August, provincial officials told the auditor-general they would take “immediate and drastic action to address the deficiencies, including investigations, and constant follow-ups on corrective actions”. More than three months later, some provincial officials were unaware of the report’s findings and not one province could provide MPs with satisfactory answers about what steps had been taken to rectify the situation. Also, not a single province could provide proof of disciplinary proceedings flowing from the damning findings. This prompted harsh criticism from some MPs.

In a heated exchange with Mpumalanga’s head of education, Mahlasedi Mhlabane, DA MP Anchen Dreyer noted that the auditor-general had found non-compliance with laws in 90 percent of the province’s education infrastructure projects. “In other words, lawlessness has become the norm in your department.” Dreyer reminded Mhlabane that it was her job to ensure the department complied with the law. “Clearly you are not doing this. So what are you doing in this position? Why should you still hold this job?” she asked. Mhlabane said an “action plan” had been drawn up to discipline errant officials. “We will be rolling (it) out in terms of taking action and the like,” she argued, leaving MPs shaking their heads in apparent disbelief. In several cases, government projects were handed out to construction companies that, contrary to the law, were not registered with the Construction Industry Development Board or that were accredited at a lower grade than required for the projects received.

In all, about R669m in contracts were awarded to unregistered or undergraded contractors. Of this sum, R594m was awarded in multiple contracts to some of these firms. “Contracts with most of these contractors were terminated due to insufficient progress and/or unsatisfactory workmanship,” the report said. In KwaZulu-Natal, a school in Pietermaritzburg was completed four years after the contract deadline as the contractor had multiple contracts and could not perform. In the Free State, contractors building a primary school had to be replaced as only 3 percent of the project had been completed by the deadline. As in many other cases across all provinces, poor record-keeping meant contract penalties could not be implemented.