The DA in the Northern Cape welcomes small improvements in the provincial government’s audit outcomes for the 2021/22 year, like the first clean audit for the Northern Cape Department of Sport, Arts & Culture.
We remain concerned about ongoing patterns of financial mismanagement and the inability of some departments to translate their funds into tangible service delivery.
The Northern Cape Department of Health still takes twice as long as it should to pay suppliers, amid daily reports of health care grinding to a halt.
Unwanted expenses like irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure continues to be a burden on the provincial fiscus. The lack of appropriate consequences for officials who misuse and misspend taxpayers’ money is alarming. The Northern Cape Department of Education alone carries irregular expenditure of R3.7 billion, but this amount is still under investigation by the Auditor-General because the departmental systems could not detect or prevent all irregularities. Investigations into irregular expenditure, including amounts incurred in prior years, must be prioritised urgently so that officials can be held accountable for financial misconduct.
At the end of the day, financial mismanagement is an indictment of the provincial government’s leaders. Our people deserve better.