Johannesburg - Tender documents with contracts valued at billions of rand have gone missing in the Gauteng departments of Health and Finance - making it impossible for the Auditor-General’s (A-G) Office to conduct audits.
This was revealed during the sitting of the Gauteng’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on Friday.
During the sitting the ANC, the DA and EFF expressed concern about their inability to access the documents from the two departments.
Their concerns grew when Kevish Lachman, of the A-G’s office, told Scopa that they had initially wanted to conduct 12 audits in the Health Department, but that the details of only five tenders were given to them.
Lachman said they were told the seven other documents were not available when they requested information about them.
Gauteng MEC for Health Qedani Mahlangu, in her written reply regarding the missing tender documents, said her department did not have a “contract management section for central repository and monitoring”.
Asked why the Health Department had no policy governing the use of consultants, she said: “The projects were procured between financial years 2003 to 2008; the available records do not provide information on this matter.”
However, Mahlangu said under her leadership the National Treasury policy was being implemented.
Scopa also wanted to know from the Health Department why there was no formal contract signed between the department and the consultant for the implementation of the smart health card.
In July, the A-G’s office found that the department paid R35.9 million to the consultant for the implementation of the smart card between 2008/09.
The card was supposed to contain the medical history of each Gauteng patient visiting any public health institution in the province.
At the time Brian Hlongwa, who was health MEC, had introduced the project to the Gauteng legislature.
The A-G’s office said it had found that the project was a flop.
It found that the government paid R36m to the contractor, but no formal contract was signed and the terms of reference were not followed. The project was stopped during the pilot phase.
“The training plan was not met and work performed was not verified before payments were made,” the report said.
Mahlangu said her office did not have information on the reasons for the lack of a contract. She also said the Health Department did not have adequate supply-chain management capacity to ensure the establishment of a bid-specification committee at the time the contracts in question were awarded.
The process had since been improved with the following measures:
lThe supply-chain management capacity had been increased.
lAll bid committees had been established.
lThe supply-chain management model had been aligned to the National Treasury supply- chain management framework.
lOfficials were being trained on supply-chain management processes.
The hearing of the Finance Department was cancelled even before its representatives appeared before Scopa.
Scopa chairman Mbongeni Radebe said Finance, like Health, had failed to provide additional information his committee had asked for.
He ordered the two departments to submit the necessary documents within two weeks or be subjected to an inquiry.
In another matter, the departments of Health and Infrastructure Development were instructed to provide information by Friday about the price escalation of the new Natalspruit Hospital.
The committee heard that the initial construction amount was R869m and that due to the delays, it had escalated to R1.4bn.
The Star