R145,000 wasted on damage to rental vehicles

Eastern Cape health department staff have done more than R100,000 damage to rental cars.

Opposition political parties believe officials driving the rental cars should be held accountable and should have to motivate why they should not be held liable for costs to repair. The total damage amounts to R144,806.15 and the officials responsible work in Bhisho, Buffalo City Metro, Amathole district, Nelson Mandela Metro, Chris Hani district, Sarah Baartman, Joe Gqabi and OR Tambo. This was revealed in a Scopa meeting held late last month.

The officials involved include directors, their deputies, various heads of clinics and communications services across the province.

Jane Cowley, DA shadow MEC for health, said talk of holding officials to account for fruitless and wasteful expenditure was just that — “big talk and no action”.

“The reason is that top management employs officials based on political patronage — cadre deployment — so they don’t want to discipline them lest they lose their support and the power they wield over the officials. I can’t believe they say some officials are untraceable. All they need to do is deduct the outstanding amounts from their salaries. They will find them very quickly,” Cowley said. EFF provincial chairperson Yazini Tetyana said rental cars were not needed as officials had access to administration vehicles and could use their own vehicles in cases of emergency and claim travel costs thereafter.

“It is not only negligence but a waste of taxpayers’ money. Money that could have been used for something positive is now needed to pay for unnecessary damage. The officials involved must be tracked [down] to account to their actions,” said Tetyana.

Health communications director Siyanda Manana told the Dispatch the cars in question were rentals hired “for the purpose of transporting officials and stakeholders interested in traditional circumcision to conduct oversight visits, awareness and training”.

He said post-circumcision the cars were “redirected” to deal with “tracing, testing and education awareness”.

“If there is negligence on the part of our employees, we make them go through a process and retrieve that money. We do investigations to find out who was involved in what. If there is any [road] accident that has occurred causing damage, we are covered by insurance,” said Manana.