Africa-Press – Botswana. The Government Accounting and Budgeting System (GABS), sluggish operating speed is being blamed for compromising service delivery.
There appears to be no end in sight for appalling performance of GABS, as the backlog of payments is piling up.
This scenario has attracted criticism from Letlhakeng District Council chairperson, Mr Anderson Mathibe who made a call to come up with a sustainable solution.
Speaking during a full council sitting recently, Mr Mathibe, called on the government to embark on alternative means to save the situation.
He suggested that the government could do away with the system or upgrade it, since it impeded service delivery and the community was always on the receiving end.
Earlier, while responding to concerns about shortage of transport, head of Letlhakeng District Health Management Team (DHMT), Dr Chawangwa Letsholathebe said GABS exacerbated Letlhakeng DHMT acute transport woes and that impacted timely servicing or attending to mechanical faults.
She said some vehicles remained subserviced, while others could not be released from garages pending payment.
Dr Letsholathebe said initially, some garages rejected the manual Government Purchase Order (GPO) until recently, after lengthy engagement with management.
She told the council that Letlhakeng DHMT had 22 vehicles and 36 drivers and was hopeful that more vehicles would be procured this financial year.
Dr Letsholathebe said shortage of medical specialists in the public health system affected service delivery and that the available few were overwhelmed.
She conceded that some patients’ condition got worse due to lack immediate care and shortage of medical specialists adding that limited number of operating theaters was also a challenge in the public health system and so was shortage of Xray machine operators.
Previously, Letlhakeng District Commissioner, Mr Ian Tema had reported that the unavailability of GABS significantly affected the payment turnaround time to suppliers and payment of compensation to the victims of human wildlife conflict.
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