Tuesday, October 04, 2022

Head of Department has proposed the appointment of qualified Facility Managers as caretakers for the properties. Approximately 37 current tenants with valid lease agreements residing at either of the three government-owned flats in Golfview, Mahikeng could be in for a shock as government contemplates billing them for water and electricity they consume. The department has to date, been footing the bills paying for utilities arising from: Bontle Flats (22 units), Blue and White Flats (7 units) and Park City Flats (8 units). This privilege, excludes tenants residing government-owned stand-alone houses. The department allocates, renovates and also carry out maintenance work at the three flats over and above the provision of private security. The complexes are predominately occupied by Senior and Middle Managers in the North West Public Service...[Read]

Thursday, September 29, 2022

The most disturbing challenge to arise from the one-on-one consultation between the Head of Department, Moses Kgantsi, Community Based Programme- alias Expanded Public Works Programme- is: To date, there are 750 EPWP beneficiaries, each one of them receiving a monthly stipend (payment) of R2 200 for doing nothing! This translates into a wage bill of R1 650 000 that is R1.7million a month. What is even more astonishing is, the department is more likely to keep on paying the above amount until August 2023, which is said to be the end date, of the 36-months contract the 750 EPWP beneficiaries signed in August 2021. But how did this come about? Asked, Kgantsi, and what were you doing all along about this matter? None of those present was committal, or had clear answers, but background as given was: What began as a grand initiative to maximize...[Read]

Monday, September 26, 2022

Irregular expenditure -the only qualification matter- stood between the department and the Auditor General giving us an unqualified audit in the past financial year. While a qualified opinion was the AG final verdict, there is a strong believe within the department, that the quality of work put in by the team during the audit process -spear-headed by Risk Management and Internal Control- may have just missed an unqualified audit opinion by a whisker, and thumbs up from the AG. “AG said the department did not “quantify the full extent of the irregular expenditure’’, and as a result, it was “impracticable’’ for auditors to determine the resultant understatement of irregular expenditure as disclosed in our financial statements, That said, some key area was flagged, but those did not influence and qualification of the department on irregular expenditure. The areas were: Underspending of the budget, fruitless and wasteful expenditure; and restatement....[Read]

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed a nine-member National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council to help him formulate approaches to fighting corruption. The Presidency on Monday announced the move, which it characterised as "strengthening South Africa's fight against fraud and corruption". "The council has been established to deepen the country's efforts to rid society and the administration of corruption, improve investor confidence and secure higher public trust. The new body will advise the government on the critical preventative measures, institutional capabilities and resources required to proactively curb a recurrence of state capture and prevent fraud and corruption in South Africa." Ramaphosa said, "the Council will enjoy the support of the vast majority of South Africans, who are honest and law-abiding and want our country to succeed. The Council will be a source of concern only to those whose days for undermining our development and prosperity are numbered.”..[Read]

Friday, August 26, 2022

All too often, people have been hired into and promoted to key positions for which they are neither suitable nor qualified. This affects government performance, but also contributes to nepotism, political interference in the work of departments, lack of accountability, mismanagement and corruption. There is also the related problem of political and executive interference in the administration of the public service. One need only to look at the instability in government departments when senior managers are swapped or replaced each time a new Minister is appointed. Directors-General and provincial heads of departments are particularly affected. In some departments, DGs, HoDs and executive managers have had stability of tenure, enabling the departments to function with little disruption. In most of these departments where there is leadership stability, audit outcomes tend to be positive and public funds can be accounted for. Where there is a high turnover of heads of department, there is often administrative turmoil...[Read]

Thursday, August 25, 2022

The new head for the department of Public Works and Roads, Moses Kgantsi, hopes to rebrand the department and instil a sense of ownership of the departmental mandate by all its employees. He revealed this during his meet and greet meetings with departmental employees at Head Office as well as at Ngaka Modiri Molema, Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati and Dr Kenneth Kauda districts. He said the main objective of the meetings was to get buy-in from staff members in order to ensure that the whole department moves in sync towards improving its reputation and performance. “We will need to work together as a team to ensure that community members regain the sense of trust they once had in this department. As a public works department we were once known as department that could be looked up to assist communities with things such as water tankers and blading roads even during funerals in their respective areas,” Kgantsi said. During the meetings, Kgantsi told staff members that there’s a need to go back to basics by reminding themselves...[Read]