As in previous years, the Auditor-General (AG) has issued a scathing report on the Gauteng Health Department for the 2023/24 financial year.
This report was tabled last week in the Gauteng Legislature, and it slams the department for poor financial management, false reporting of achievements, and a lack of consequences for transgressing officials.
According to the AG, the department underspent by R1.1 billion, including R590 million on the National Tertiary Service Grant which is supposed to subsidise highly specialist services. Furthermore, there was R2.7 billion irregular expenditure, R17 million fruitless and wasteful expenditure, and material losses of R2.7 billion due to impairment of accrued departmental revenue.
After examining claimed achievements, the AG says many of them could not be determined as correct “as adequate supporting evidence was not provided for auditing.” This includes the reported 86% hospital patient satisfaction rate which the department has quoted in the wake of the viral Tom London video that exposed poor care at the Helen Joseph Hospital.
Other suspect indicators where the AG identified material differences between the actual and reported achievements were the number of adults remaining on anti-retroviral treatment, and the fatality rate for diarrhoea and pneumonia for children under five years old.
For District Health Services, only 59% of targets were achieved, and 72% of the targets for Provincial Health Services, but much information for this is suspect.
According to the AG: “The lack of credible information is likely to result in substantial harm to the operations of the department as incorrect data is used for planning and budgeting and the effectiveness of oversight and monitoring are reduced as a result of unreliable reported performance information on the provision of primary health care services.”
Concerning procurement and contract management, the AG says some of the goods and services of a transaction value above R1 million were procured without inviting competitive bids, some contracts were awarded to bidders who did not submit a declaration on whether they are employed by the state or connected to any person employed by the state, and some contracts were awarded to suppliers whose tax matters were not in order according to the SA Revenue Service.
There was also poor expenditure management, with payments not made within the prescribed 30 days, and ineffective steps to prevent irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
But there was little consequence for these failures as the AG “was unable to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence that disciplinary steps were taken against officials.”
This report confirms yet again the need for a change in top management who are incapable of fixing the deep deficiencies in Gauteng’s public healthcare, including the massive corruption that led to Babita Deokaran’s murder.
The DA is calling on Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi to remove Mr Lesiba Malotana, the head of department, who is being investigated by the SIU for allegedly sharing a R8 million bribe with two other officials.