Provinces owe contractors R896m

THE provinces owed contractors that rendered services to the Human Settlements Department a whopping R896 million after they failed to honour 1 085 payments as at May.

This was revealed by Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu in replying to a parliamentary question from the DA’s Mbulelo Bara.

Gauteng was leading the provinces with outstanding payment of invoices totalling R597 million, followed by the Eastern Cape, which owed R176m, and Free State, R122m.

North West had not paid invoices totalling R5.4m, Mpumalanga R4.4m and Limpopo R529 631.

Gauteng had the most unpaid invoices, 824; Free State 277; Eastern Cape 184; Limpopo 50; Mpumalanga seven; and Limpopo three for the period.

Only KwaZulu-Natal, the Northern Cape and Western Cape were not owing contractors.

Sisulu said her department was still grappling with the payments of service providers within the stipulated time frame of 30 days.

“The challenges remain and are multifaceted,” she said.

Sisulu said the reasons provided by the provinces for the late payments varied from late submission of invoices to verification of information.

“Sometimes the required details for new suppliers are not always available in the financial system to facilitate payments due to inadequate completion of the registration forms by suppliers,” she added.

The Eastern Cape blamed non-payment on the “shrinkage” of equitable shares due to commitments and top slicing of its budget.

Inadequate funds to pay contractors from the first tranche of housing grants was also blamed.

“The Eastern Cape is attending to its cash-flow problems and it is hoped that this matter will be resolved soon,” Sisulu said.

She said the Free State had not been paying contractors within the 30-day time frame due to insufficient funds being available. Gauteng could make payments because the first payment tranche was made late in May by her department.

Limpopo had experienced delays in registration of contractors with the central database system, and bank details submitted not matching those in the central database.