Officials guilty of misusing public money at the Gauteng Shared Services Centre must be held accountable, the DA said on Friday.
“Leaving them unpunished is an insult to South Africans, as these officials siphon much-needed money away from service delivery programmes,” said Democratic Alliance spokesman Mike Moriarty.
The GSSC provides tender administration and other support services to all departments of the provincial government.
Finance MEC Mandla Mkomfe revealed in a written reply to a question on Tuesday that the province would no longer have a centralised adjudication process.
A decision was taken to transfer the function back to the departments, said Mkomfe.
Moriarty said the future of the GSSC now hung in the balance and that millions of rands had been wasted.
“The centre has been a suspected hotbed of corruption, attracting the attention of the auditor general, because of large amounts of unauthorised expenditure.”
Department spokesman John Sukazi said on Friday a restructuring process at the GSSC had been ongoing since 2009.
The centre did not only deal with tender administration, he said.
“Other functions, such as human resources and information technology services, will still be provided by the GSSC,” said Sukazi.
Only the finance and procurement functions were given back to the departments. - Sapa