7 – 13 September 2009

My fellow citizens of KwaZulu Natal

The Official Opposition appreciates the determination and urgency with which the provincial government appears to be tackling the mounting crisis in the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health even if it may have been the lack of these attributes that led to the vast, multi-billion rand over-expenditure in the first place. 

The recovery plan, presented to the media yesterday by the MECs for Health and Finance, receives our qualified support provided it delivers on its primary objective of balancing the budget and curbing the current expenditure and thereby removing the risk this wayward government department has been posing to the fiscal stability of the entire province. 

In many respects, this plan is identical to the ill-fated Turnaround Project approved in November last year and underwritten by the Joint Management Team comprising of the Department of Health and Treasury. We know today that this project has singularly failed to curb the mounting departmental over-expenditure.  

Perhaps the most telling indictment of its failure is the need for the current recovery plan. As we stand today, the Department of Health is running up a fresh overdraft. As I write the Department is exceeding the   overdraft facility approved by the provincial government.  

The success of the current plan will almost exclusively depend on the manpower of those expected to implement it. This time round, Treasury has seconded two senior officials to oversee the recovery plan directly in the Department of Health. If this is an expression of urgency, one wonders why these additional measures were not implemented last year. 

The Treasury reinforcements seconded to the Department of Health are somehow dimmed by the transfers of staff in the opposite direction. While we in the Official Opposition welcome the departure of the department’s Chief Financial Officer Sipho Buthelezi whose attitude was hardly conducive to a committed recovery plan, the fact that he was not dismissed but merely transferred to Treasury is a cause for concern in that it sends an altogether wrong message to errant public servants. 

Generally speaking, transfers rather than dismissals of incompetent staff are an established practice within this provincial government. Another recent example of this is Dr AV Shongwe, former Head of the provincial Department of Royal Household who, rather than being made to suffer the consequences of his mismanagement, has merely been moved to the Office of the Premier where, as we have learned, he is now a senior director in charge of research.  

The diagnosis of the challenges in the Department of Health is surprisingly frank: weak budget and human resources management, inadequately qualified staff, deeply flawed procurement procedures, and manipulated In Year Monitoring (IYM) processes. This does indeed paint a grim picture as one of the key service delivery departments is evidently unable to keep the lid on excessive spending without having anything to show for the gross overspending of which it has been guilty several financial years in a row. 

As we contemplate introducing a comprehensive National Health Insurance plan, the performance of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health should sound alarm bells. Can the department that has repeatedly overspent a significant budget without tangible service delivery be trusted with a much larger budget, a far more complex bureaucracy and considerably higher service delivery expectations?   

For the sake of the people of KwaZulu-Natal we in the Official Opposition sincerely hope this time round the joint recovery plan will work. Overspending is not only a serious breach of legislation governing public finance but it has a direct bearing on the taxpayer who, in addition to funding the budget itself, will be expected to service interest on overdraft. 

We have previously pledged our support for the new MEC for Health who, after years of profligacy and net for him. Our support on the opposition benches for the latest version of the recovery plan for the Department of Health will nonetheless be coupled with vigorous oversight. 

Sincerely,

Dr Bonginkosi Buthelezi MPL

Leader of the Official Opposition

Contact: Dr Bonginkosi Buthelezi, 082 516 0156