The DA in Limpopo notes with grave concern that the office of the Premier is not doing enough to hold the province’s MECs and Accounting Officers accountable for gross financial mismanagement. Irregular expenditure in the province increased from R15.877 269 billion as at 31 July 2023 to R18.684 233 billion during the financial year 2023.
Premier Phophi Ramathuba must rein in irregular expenditure and address the province’s underperforming entities as a matter of urgency.
Roads Agency Limpopo’s (RAL) irregular expenditure has increased from R6.746 014 billion to R8.244 063 billion. This failed and collapsing entity continues misusing grant funding and has weak internal controls, highlighting the inability by the board and the MEC to act.
The Department of Education’s irregular expenditure increased from R3.461 917 billion to R4.129 631 billion, while the Department of Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure increased to R2.945 306 billion. Premier Ramathuba, while still the MEC, allowed the Health Department to rack up R2.241 353 billion in irregular expenditure.
The provincial departments have also seemingly struggled to get their irregular expenditure condoned as a large majority of the applications for condonement submitted failed to comply with the requirements of the PFMA compliance and reporting Framework.
Some of the province’s historical issues in addressing the irregular expenditure is delays in performing investigations on unwanted expenditure, a lack of consequence management and non-compliance with legislation. It is clear there has been a lack of political will to address these challenges.
The DA believes in order to rescue Limpopo from an embedded culture of maladministration, Premier Ramathuba has an obligation to ensure accountability by setting performance targets for the executive in order to strengthen financial controls, especially in a province with huge challenges and all available financial resources need to be used efficiently.