Question NW2754 to the Minister of Health
20 December 2021 - NW2754
Chirwa, Ms NN to ask the Minister of Health
In light of the fact that the 2020-21 report of the Auditor-General of South Africa to the National Assembly highlighted the general failure by his department and entities reporting to him to adhere to deviations and exceptions legislation, which then contributes to the high irregular expenditure and to an extent the corruption in his department, (a) how does he intend to resolve the specified crisis in (i) his department and (ii) entities reporting to him and (b) on what date it is envisaged that he will outline tangible measures and/or efforts working towards resolving this?
Reply:
(a) The department has a Loss Control Committee to deal with the Irregular Expenditure and do an analysis on some of the cases of disagreements related to the interpretation of irregular expenditure categorised under emergency procurement in line with the circular directive issued by National Treasury.
(i)-(ii) The department including the entities implemented processes to ensure end users are conscientise to comply with Irregular Expenditure Framework and its prescribed timelines. The department its further implementing processes and mechanism where all end users on procurements of goods and services are done through Supply Chain Management Cluster to ensure that internal policies and procedures are fully complied with.
Effective consequence management process when non-compliance on irregular Expenditure is detected, the department has a loss Control Committee to conduct a determination test or analyse particulars of the non-compliance to establish the facts and losses, if any, related to the transaction. The committee will then recommend appropriate action on each reported. The process is already implemented and underway, and Human Resource Labour Relation unit including Legal Service Cluster are currently dealing with the investigation of some of the cases which involves the officials and/ or service providers alleged to be committed irregular expenditure. Tangible measures and/or efforts will be determined at the end of the financial year during the audit process.
END.