Pretoria - Gauteng MEC for Health and Wellness Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko has revealed that her ministry owes departmental medical suppliers more than R1.8 billion, some for more than a year.
Nkomo-Ralehoko was replying to questions from DA spokesperson Jack Bloom in the Gauteng Legislature. In his initial question, Bloom asked Nkomo-Ralehoko what percentage of companies dealing with the department had been paid within the 30-day period as at January 31 this year. He also wanted to know how many current invoices were paid within 30 days.
Bloom also asked how many companies were owed more than the prescribed 30 days.
In her reply, she wrote that only 40% of companies had been paid within the 30-day period.
In her written replies signed off last week, just a few days before Premier Panyaza Lesufi delivered his maiden State of the Province Address on Monday, she admitted that more than 940 companies were owed for more than 30 days.
She said: “The number of companies owed more than 30 days was 940. At the date of the compilation of the report, 106 of the 940 suppliers have been paid; payment plans/arrangements are in place for all old invoices.”
Nkomo-Ralehoko said the total amount owed was R1 865 793 230.33 and, she added, out of 940 companies, 223 were owed more than 90 days – totalling an amount of R982 930 238.24.
In all, 176 companies were owed for more than 180 days – a total of more than R35.5m.
According to Nkomo-Ralehoko, late payments could be attributed to court orders or settlements of medical legal matters that were not planned and budgeted for, when they were received, saying they must be paid. She also said it was due to settlement of old accruals.
She, however, promised to turn the situation around, promising to ensure that the receipt of goods documents for deliveries would be captured into their system within five days.
“Vendors would be instructed to upload invoices within one day of delivery and invoices to be uploaded within five days. Priority will be given to all invoices in the system that qualify for 30 days when compiling monthly payment runs.”
Reacting to the reply, Bloom said: “The situation is so bad that some unpaid companies are refusing to supply essential equipment to hospitals. It’s a key challenge for Premier Panyaza Lesufi, who promised in his State of the Province Address that there would be ‘stringent consequence management’ for the failure to pay within 30 days.”
While Nkomo-Ralehoko gave responses related to her department, it showed that the Gauteng provincial government continues to owe its service providers for more than 90 days despite promises by numerous politicians, especially past premiers, to turn the tide.
Gauteng is still ranked among the top three provinces to owe service providers billions of rand.
Despite these damning reports, no actions were taken against political heads responsible for poor payment despite promises by Gauteng premiers in the past. And now, the incumbent Panyaza Lesufi – with less than a year in office – has also promised to act against the offenders.
In his address on Monday, Lesufi said his government had been inundated with concerns about unpaid invoices that could not be paid or were disputed, impacting negatively on their financial performance, thus leading to a huge infrastructure under expenditure.
“Within this context, we will establish a new, fully fledged invoicing dispute resolution unit that will serve as an ombud for disputed invoices. This unit will be obliged to resolve disputed invoices within seven working days unless the matter is with other agencies of the state or it involves acts of corruption.
Pretoria News