Discipline of PPE rogues ‘must be speeded up’

THE government should speed up the disciplining of the public servants that are responsible for the irregularities incurred in the procurement of personal personal protective equipment (PPEs).

This because the speed and the pace of the disciplinary processes seem to be unimpressive, if the statement made by the Special Investigating unit (SIU) is anything to go by.

Last week the SIU told the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) that it has referred 39 new cases for disciplinary action against officials as at June 2.

The number was in addition to 88 others since their last report.

The SIU head Andy Mothibi said the state organs should be called to account in terms of where they are with implementation of consequence management.

“We would really urge state institutions to move with speed to institute disciplinary action,” he said.

This has since prompted Scopa to decide to dispatch correspondence to the affected departments and municipalities to provide progress reports and explanation of the disciplinary processes within 14 days.

The Scopa’s decision is welcome news to exert the necessary pressure on the slow pace of disciplining the officials responsible for PPE irregularities.

The fact that there will be monitoring of the disciplinary process could spur the departments and municipalities to act against the officials who are on the wrong side of the law.

This is so because the SIU is investigating irregular procurement contracts valued at R14.8 billion.

The amount involved is too much for any of the culprits not to suffer consequence management.

The disciplinary processes cannot be over-emphasised.

Equally the failure to act on time against the officials has the potential to inculcate the culture of impunity where those responsible for the massive fraud and corruption could easily assume nothing would happen to them regardless of the SIU investigations.

There cannot be another way to motivate the SIU to continue with excellent work other than really crack the whip and impose appropriate sanctions.

If it means that the powers that be should be pushed to act, Scopa is the right forum to do so.