‘Thieves were waiting at the door’ as soon as South Africa announced coronavirus budgets, says Mboweni
In his emergency coronavirus budget in June, Finance minister Tito Mboweni warned that ‘the thieves had begun to assemble at door’ as soon as the government announced funds for Covid-19.
This statement proved to be quite prophetic, he told a virtual parliamentary meeting on Wednesday (5 August), with the government now facing dozens of allegations related to dodgy tender deals and corrupt officials who have used the pandemic for their own gain.
“We have been facing this devastating pandemic, and we said that we needed to rearrange our budget and fight this pandemic to the best of our abilities. The reprioritisation of expenditure was an important step to take,” Mboweni said.
The minister said that Treasury subsequently issued clear instructions on how to go about procuring the required materials needed to fight the pandemic – including cost prices for everything from masks to ventilators.
He added that in the Treasury instructions, the following is clear:
- The description of the item;
- The supplier’s name;
- The unit price of the material being procured;
- The quantity;
- Total price;
- If this price is in line with the Treasury’s instruction or not.
“In an ethical society, one would have expected all parties concerned to follow the Treasury instructions to the letter and make sure that everything being procured is in line with the Treasury instruction,” he said.
“If all the procurement parties followed the tender and procurement processes, we would not be having this conversation today.
“The fact and reality is that people have found an opportunity to do that which is wrong.”
#procurement pic.twitter.com/bxnrv6w1zm
— National Treasury (@TreasuryRSA) August 5, 2020
Mboweni added that the Treasury instruction is very clear – it shows all accounting officers and heads of department the direction which they should follow.
The Department of Health had a responsibility ‘to do what it was supposed to do’, he said.
“It would appear that there is a prima facie case that not in all instances was the Treasury instruction followed,” he said.
“It is now up to law enforcement agencies to follow up on that which was done wrong to ensure that the culprits are brought to book.”
New controls
Facing this corruption, Treasury said that new controls are being considered for PPE procurement.
It said that emergency procurement for PPE and protective clothing has ended, with institutions reverting back to open procurement processes.
National Treasury said it will lock an absolute price for all PPE and listed protective clothing procurement. This means that permission for any price above that must be sought.
Institutions must also provide National Treasury with the names of all appointed service providers, to be published on the group’s website.
Treasury also called for the modernisation of public procurement, including automated systems, with enhanced due diligence, and increased efficiency in processing requests.
Trade union Cosatu said it has repeatedly raised with the government and publicly the massive loopholes in the public procurement of PPEs which has resulted in:
- Industrial-scale looting;
- Supplying shoddy PPEs;
- The loss of potentially billions of Rands to the economy on cheap imports and when every cent in local procurement can save thousands of South African workers’ jobs;
- Gross wastage of billions of Rands due to overpriced products when the state is robbing public servants of their meagre inflationary increase for 2020.
The government needs to move with speed to halt the rot in the procurement of PPEs and send a message to the public that it is serious about tackling the cancer of corruption, Costu said.
It called on the state to audit all PPE tenders and prosecute those who have broken the law, and remove political officer bearers whose departments are implicated in corruption and wasteful expenditure.
It said that the state must establish rapid response courts to tackle corruption, and finalise and fast track the passage of the Public Procurement Bill, among other things.
“The government must now show leadership and the time for the mass anarchy that has come to characterise governance in South Africa must end. Millions of lives depend on it,” it said.
Read: Why we are cautiously optimistic about South Africa’s coronavirus peak: Mkhize
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