21 May 2010

The IFP has discovered with horror that most provincial government departments in KwaZulu-Natal lack policy to regulate business dealings of officials with the government. 

“With institutionalised corruption so rife as it is in KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa, we find it shocking that in most government departments in the province, there is nothing to prevent officials from landing lucrative government tenders,” said IFP KwaZulu-Natal public accounts spokesperson Dr Lionel Mtshali MPL. 

The IFP was commenting on the findings of the 2009 Report of the Auditor General on a performance audit of entities that are connected with government employees and doing business with departments in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial administration. The report was tabled in SCOPA in the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature today. 

“While some government departments have grossly inadequate guidelines governing officials’ business dealings with government, most of them have no such policies at all and this includes provincial Treasury,” said Dr Mtshali.     

The IFP is of the view that similar disclosure requirements that currently apply to elected representatives who are governed by the national legislation should be extended to officials to limit the proliferation of so-called 'tenderpreneurs' in the province's civil service. 

“We maintain that all senior civil servants from Head of Department down to Director should be legally obliged to disclose interest, preferably in a universal process that would apply to all provincial government departments on an equal basis,” said Dr Mtshali.

Contact:
Dr Lionel Mtshali
078 302 0929