Picture: North West Premier, Prof Job Mokgoro
By OBAKENG MAJE
North West Provincial Government has spent over R100m in all COVID-19 procurement thus far. This was revealed by the North West Premier, Prof Job Mokgoro during the Provincial Coronavirus Command Council media briefing in Mahikeng on Monday.
The allegations of widespread corruption and tender irregularities surrounding COVID-19 were reported in Ngaka Modiri-Molema and JB Marks municipalities respectively.
“This amount is from an expenditure report that was presented by Provincial Treasury to the Provincial Coronavirus Command Council, which in turn provided us with consolidated spending information that had been received from Provincial Government Departments as on 6 August 2020. The expenditure will continuously increase over the period of our intervention as the departments consistently update their records after capturing all payments in the system.
“The North West Provincial Government will fully cooperate with the Cabinet Committee announced by the President to deal with the alleged corruption of in all COVID-19 procurement. It is our belief that theft and corruption should not be given space to thrive anywhere, anytime, and anyhow,” he said.
Mokgoro further said while departments such as Health, Education, and Social Development incurred COVID-19 spending on social responsibility, the majority of departments are mainly spending for internal interventions to curb the spread of the disease. He added that the Department of Health, which is the lead department in the implementation of the Provincial COVID-19 Response Plan, has an expenditure of R65 million to date.
“The majority of money has been directed to healthcare workers and patients in the fight against COVID-19. The Department of Education comes in as being the second highest with R32,669 million spent mostly on temperature scanners and masks for learners, educators and non-educators as well as other COVID-19 related items; in an effort to ensure that teaching and learning would not be compromised in the fight against the spread of the pandemic,” he said.
Mokgoro said the Department of Social Development has to date spent R9.257million on Social Relief of Distress, R8.7million on food parcels, and R490 000 on dignity packs. He said as part of their continued drive to ensure compliance and strict adherence to the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), while also ensuring accountability, the Provincial Internal Audit is currently performing audits on all COVID-19 related procurement by departments, including but not limited to PPE.
“The audits focus amongst others on whether departments assessed and managed the risk with regard to this expenditure and whether the prescribed procurement processes were followed, whether prices paid are market-related and in accordance with price determinations and whether the quality of goods received complied with the prescribed standards.
“The audits are at an advanced stage of execution and the final reports are expected to be issued before 31 August 2020. Where there are transgressions, necessary consequence management action will be taken and cooperation will be provided to appointed law enforcement agencies,” said Mokgoro.
He said the Provincial Command Council (PCC) has agreed to the publication of COVID-19 expenditure before the end of today in support of transparency principles subject to confidentiality provisions attached to the contracting between government departments and service providers.
According to Mokgoro, the Office of the Premier and Provincial Treasury will be responsible for publishing that information.
“The publication will afford the public to hold the province accountable for the public funds it has been entrusted with to further open government to scrutiny to check if equal value has been derived on spent resources.
“Regarding the municipalities, the Provincial Treasury working with Office of the Premier, SALGA and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, will be working with all municipalities to ensure publication of the similar information,” he said.
The Guardian 