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The Gauteng Provincial Government’s (GPG) continued war on wasteful and fruitless expenditure is bearing positive results.

Tabling the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) at the provincial legislature on Tuesday, MEC for Finance, Barbara Creecy said in 2015 the provincial government drastically reduced fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

“Our war on waste is succeeding.  Last year GPG drastically reduced fruitless and wasteful expenditure, including interest paid on overdue accounts and litigation settlements, by 93% from R415 million the previous year to R29 million last year,” said Creecy.

There was a significant saving of R386 million.  This was achieved largely because last year 10 of the 14 departments paid 90% of their invoices within 30 days.  

Creecy highlighted the significant improvement in 2015/16 audit outcomes by the provincial departments all of which obtained unqualified audits 60% of which were clean.

She attributed the improvement of audit outcomes to Premier David Makhura for insisting on a culture of accountability, sound financial management practices and effective consequence management where non-performance was identified.

The Open Tender System was also listed as the significant contribution to improved audit outcomes in departments that implemented it in the last financial year.  

“Irregular expenditure by departments dropped by 26% or R1,4 billion, while provincial entities reduced irregular expenditure by 43%.  While we celebrate this progress, this government believes irregular expenditure remains too high,” she said.

She made it clear that GPG would not tolerate flouting supply chain management rules and regulations.

In this regard, Creecy has written to MECs who lead departments that incurred irregular expenditure asking them to investigate these incidents, conduct disciplinary processes against responsible officials.


Issued by Gauteng Provincial Government