Companies have been registered on the eve of vaccine rollout - Scopa chair
2 February 2021 6:29 PM Mkhuleko Hlengwa
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Mkhuleko Hlengwa says tenders or advertising specifications are tailored to suit a particular company and a particular narrative.
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) has sent a letter to the ministers of health and finance calling for open tender processes for the storage and distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine.
The committee has requested the two ministers in the letter to ensure that there is a transparent public adjudication of the tender processes.
Furthermore, the committee calls upon the executive to ensure that all normal tender processes are adhered to according to Note 3 of the National Treasury Regulations and the Public Finance Management Act.
Hlengwa, who hammered on the slow pace of progress, described the project as a national embarrassment. A blunder of epic proportions. I would want to shape up very quickly, clean up the mess and restore a semblance of integrity and public dignity. Somehow, we have [to] sit here and be subjected to artificial longwinded processes. This is not the note we wanted to start the year on. Let us not pretend that we are ignorant to the corruption that took place at Beitbridge where things went fundamentally wrong, he said.
Hlengwa said: Acting DG and your team come the next meeting or report and we are not satisfied, I can assure you. will make specific recommendations about yourselves. This is the final warning. Shape up, or shape out. These issues must be dealt with speed, with urgency and brought to a conclusion. We need to move on to the next pressing issues that the department is faced with. You have a myriad of issues that you should be dealing with.
jaco marais
There was a lack of political will among accounting officers and executive authorities or ministers to implement Parliament s recommendations to improve compliance and prevent the looting of public funds.
Former Scopa chair Themba Godi says that members of his committee who stood up for good governance did not return to Parliament under the new administration.
Godi says that his committee had found there was a sense of impunity among some officials to loot as if they had a democratic right to be corrupt .
There was a lack of political will among accounting officers and executive authorities or ministers to implement recommendations of Parliament to improve compliance and prevent the looting of public funds, said Themba Godi, former chairperson of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa).
As reported previously by
Daily Maverick, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) was initially investigating 57 contracts for the procurement of protective equipment (PPE) by the KZN Department of Education (DOE) worth R492,600,000, four contracts for the procurement of blankets by the Department of Social Development (DSD) to the value of R22.4-million, and 18 contracts for the procurement of personal PPE by the DSD to the value of R21.2-million.
But the SIU’s head of stakeholder relations and communications, Kaizer Kganyago, has told
Daily Maverick that several other contracts are now also under investigation, namely:
uMngeni Municipality: 13 contracts to the value of R7,805,588;
News24/file
The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure has revealed it spent R5 billion on renting private properties for government departments and institutions.
Just over 300 landlords have been over-payed to the tune of R66 million, most of which the department has already recouped.
The expenditure covers the financial year ending March 2020.
Government has forked out R5 billion on renting private properties for government departments and institutions, but the fight is now on to recoup millions in overpayments to landlords.
This was revealed by Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille in her reply to a parliamentary question from EFF MP Annacleta Mathapelo Siwisa.