President Cyril Ramaphosa addresses delegates at the SA Investment Conference. Picture: GCIS

Johannesburg - President Cyril Ramaphosa plans to revive small businesses in the country received a major boost after the Public Service Commission (PSC) pledged to deal harshly with government departments failing to pay service providers within 30 days.

PSC chairperson Adv Richard Sizani said his Commission will continue to monitor government departments closely on their compliance with the 30 day payment period.

Sizani said his Commission will view “non-compliance as financial misconduct.” 

The PSC’s pledge came after Ramaphosa made a call to government to ensure that suppliers are paid on time.

In his call during the SA Investment Conference in Soweto last week, Ramaphosa said: “We need to offer confidence to investors to want to put their capital in our SMMEs by growing this sector and improving its viability.”

Sizani said his Commission has noted Ramaphosa’s call with excitement saying particularly because failure to pay suppliers has dire consequences for sustainability of small, medium and micro enterprises and it impacts negatively on the government’s job creation initiatives.

Sizani also said failure to pay small enterprises compromises government’s performances and service delivery.

“The PSC is an independent and oversight institution mandated to promote and evaluate the constitutional values and principles and ensure effective and efficient performance in the public service.

“The non-payment of suppliers is in contravention of the Treasury Regulations and constitutional principles such as efficient, effective and economic use of resources, accountability and transparency,” Sizani said.

He said the PSC would engage executive authorities and accounting officers of the identified repeat offenders to obtain reasons for the non-payment of suppliers.

“Requesting information on measures to put in place to ameliorate the situation, including consequence management (actions step taken) to embed the constitutional principle of accountability.

“Name the top 10 defaulting departments in the PSC’s quarterly bulletin,” Sizani said. 

Political Bureau