Report details R2bn spent on Covid-19
THE provincial treasury has published its first-ever annual procurement disclosure report (PDR) which reveals that a little over R2 billion had been committed towards Covid-19 related expenditure across departments and public entities across the province.
The annual PDR is over 200 pages long and includes over 6 400 Covid19 expenditure transactions since the start of the pandemic on March 1, 2020, as well as for the financial year (April 2020 to March 2021).
The report, which was launched during the opening of the provincial treasury’s procurement client centre at Century City, said that R1.524 billion (67.3%) of all Covid-19 expenditure by provincial departments and public entities was spent with small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs), which exceeds the national target of 30%.
Finance and Economic Opportunities MEC David Maynier said: “This is the first of its kind in South Africa.
“When it comes to public procurement, we are determined to be the most transparent province in the country.
“Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic we have remained committed to transparency and clean government in the Western Cape.
“Which is why we were the first in the country to publish detailed transactions on all Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) procurement on July 28 last year and have done so every month since, expanding our reports to also include all Covid-19 transactions.”
At R1 billion the provincial Health Department had the highest overall expenditure for Covid-19, followed by the Education Department at R431million and Transport and Public Works at R408 million.
The report said R1.29 billion (63.5%) of all Covid-19 expenditure was to suppliers situated in the Western Cape and R1.23 billion (60.91%) of all Covid-19 expenditure was to BBBEE suppliers.
ANC Finance and Economic Opportunities spokesperson Nomi Nkondlo said she had noticed in the report that R791 million was spent on companies that are not BBBEE compliant.
“The ANC always voiced its strong disagreement with the provincial government’s deliberate disregard of BBBEE legislation and its continued spending on non-compliant companies for business that can be done by compliant companies.
“We will be tabling a question to the MEC in the legislature asking about the circumstances that forced the government to spend so much money on non-compliant companies and asking for the details of the companies that benefited as well as of the contracts awarded.
“Meanwhile, disclosure reports are not an indication of corruption-free practices in the provincial government’s Covid-19 expenditure.
“The SIU is busy with investigations in this regard and we call on them to speed up their investigations and make the findings public.”
In February, the BBBEE Commission told the provincial legislature to consider issuing a directive to all Western Cape organs of state and public entities to immediately submit their compliance reports following complaints by the ANC.