Africa-Press – South-Africa. The DA has criticised the Gauteng health department’s failure to pay invoices of more than R5.1bn within the required 30 days.
The invoices were for the first quarter of the 2025/2026 financial year.
Public service commissioner Vusimuzi Mavuso raised concern about the department not paying service providers on time and putting jobs at risk in a presentation to the Gauteng legislature’s finance portfolio committee.
According to the presentation, the Gauteng health department paid R1.6bn within 30 days and R2.4bn after 30 days, with R2.6bn still not paid after a longer period.
DA Gauteng finance spokesperson Madeleine Hicklin said the report shows the department was used to delaying payments.
“Mavuso emphasised in the presentation that during the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 financial years the department had similar underperformance paying invoices within the timeframe with 35% and 42% for the respective periods.”
Hicklin said the department’s inability to make payments is affecting businesses that depend on 30-day payment of invoices to pay employees their salaries.
“This will also affect patients’ access to healthcare services as the department’s service providers are constrained.”
The department, which has been operating without a CFO, only advertised the post after being pressured to fill it.
“This systematic failure to fill critical posts is a contributing factor to the department’s failure to pay invoices in the given 30 days,” Hicklin said.
The department would not meet its statutory obligations until premier Panyaza Lesufi appointed an appropriate MEC, CFOs and heads of department.
“The DA will monitor the process of hiring the new CFO to ensure that a competent candidate meeting the requirements is appointed to improve the payment of suppliers”, Hicklin said.
The department only paid 38% of invoices within 30 days in the first quarter of the 2024/2025 financial year.
The report also showed there was a decline in the number of invoices paid within 30 days from the fourth quarter of 2024/2025 to the first quarter of 2025/2026.
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