Whenever one asks the Northern Cape Department of Health about the acute lack of chronic medication and other necessities, the dilapidated state of medical facilities, the long waiting time for ambulances and the fact that some patients must resort to hearses or wheelbarrows because ambulances don’t come, the answer is always – “There is no money.”
The fact of the matter is that the department, which received R6.4 billion in the recent provincial budget, has more than enough money to deliver medical services of a decent quality to every patient in the province. But it is being misspent.
According to the Auditor-General, the department’s spending accounts for 55% of all unauthorised expenditure, 49% of all irregular expenditure and 46% of all fruitless and wasteful expenditure in the Northern Cape. The breathtaking scope of the department’s bad financial management is confirmed by the fact that it got 29% of the provincial budget. So, with just a third of all provincial funding, it is responsible for more than half of all unauthorised expenditure and nearly half of all irregular expenditure.
The lawlessness that leads to this undesirable expenditure is displayed in the kind of conduct that led to criminal convictions and arrests of senior managers appointed by the department. Yet convicted criminals continue to enjoy the protection of the premier, probably because they are cadres of his chosen faction.
Legal costs carried by the department are also set to increase, as medico-legal claims and other contingent liabilities amounted to R2.5 billion in March 2023.
There is only one way to rescue the department from its spiral of debt and bad financial management. And that is to ensure that a caring, clean, competent government led by the DA is elected in May 2024.