Bhisho spending millions on disciplinary cases’ legal fees

THE ANC in the Eastern Cape said it was outraged by the use of private legal firms by the province’s Health and Education departments to deal with internal disciplinary cases.

The departments have amassed a combined bill of R14-million in this financial year, hiring lawyers to deal with litigation and disciplinary cases.

Provincial government departments, including the legislature, have spent close to R65-million in legal fees for the 2011-12 financial year, the bulk of the money spent on disciplinary cases against civil servants and litigation.

The Health Department alone spent more than R26.2-million in the last financial year when, according to the department’s annual performance plan, it had only budgeted R1.4-million for the 2011-12 financial year.

For the 2012-13 financial year, Health budgeted R2.3-million but has spent nearly R8-million.

For the 2012-13 financial year, provincial departments have budgeted more than R33-million for legal fees alone.

ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane described the use of private legal firms as outrageous and disappointing. “What is the cause for the use of external legal firms to discipline internal staff within departments. This is outrageous,” he said.

Mabuyane said during the party’s lekgotla in July last year, it was resolved that the provincial government should refrain from using private lawyers for disciplinary cases.

“However, we still hear that these departments, especially Health and Education, are doing this. We also found that departments hire lawyers and senior counsel from outside the province at huge amounts. This is really against the decision taken by the ANC in last year’s lekgotla.”

Mabuyane said it was unnecessary and uncalled for. “The use of internal arrangements is much cheaper and can save government loads of money that can be used for service delivery.”

He called on government departments to respect the ANC’s decisions.

Mabuyane, however, said a lot still needed to be done in the recapitalisation of departments to allow them to offer decent services to the people of the province and to compete with the private sector. “We still have to work on professionalism and the filling of critical posts with qualified personnel.”

Eastern Cape parastatals spent nearly R60-million hiring consultants in the 2011-12 financial year.

Five government departments said they forked out more than R120-million on hiring consultants to perform duties civil servants were meant to carry out.

Most municipalities rely on consultants to prepare their financial statements at a total cost of more than R24-million. Yet that has not yielded a noticeable improvement in audit outcomes.