Cape Town - Non-payments by the government to suppliers have shot up alarmingly, with four departments failing to settle R4.1m in invoices for June alone, the Public Service Commission (PSC) said.
The PSC on Thursday delivered its quarterly Pulse publication covering April 1 to June 30 under the theme of late former President Nelson Mandela.
The report zeroed-in on building an ethical public service, ethics in recruitment and selection processes, the PSC’s role in the public participation process, non-payment of suppliers, and public service grievances and complaints.
PSC commissioner Anele Gxoyiya singled out Water and Sanitation’s failure to pay 764 suppliers invoices worth R2 590 747 for June alone.
In all, 952 suppliers were not paid R4.1m due to them in June.
Water and Sanitation is a repeat offender, having failed to pay R12.5 million to 32 suppliers in April.
Gxoyiya said that the government’s failure in paying suppliers on time “kills small businesses as suppliers make loans in order to deliver services, but because they don’t get paid on time, the loans attract interest”.
The ripple effect of that is that businesses collapse because some are liquidated and people lose jobs, contributing to the already high unemployment rate.
He presented a report that showed unpaid invoices spiralled from 134 as at March 31 to 959 as at June 30, with the Water and Sanitation Department being the worst non-paying entity.
“This must be seen as an indictment,” Gxoyiya said.
He said it was disconcerting that Basic Education, Employment and Labour, Transport, Health and Water and Sanitation departments submitted reports late in the first quarter.
“Of great concern is the Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Department, which submitted reports late for the first two quarters of this year,” Gxoyiya said.
The department did not bother submitting for the quarter under review.
“There is no consequence for that, which is very sad because we’ve always emphasised that consequence management is key to effective and efficient governance and public service.
“This is a clear display that some of the departments have total disregard of their own legal obligations and continue not to pay,” he said.
He said the State Capture Commission had shown that the country had sunk to “become one of the countries with high levels of unethical governance in both private and public sectors”.
Gxoyiya said through various studies, the PSC had identified a “widened gap” between the government and citizens.
He said ethical and moral challenges continue to undermine the National Development Plan.
National Treasury regulations state that government departments and entities have a maximum of 30 days by which they should have paid suppliers, and Gxoyiya said government entities are able to pay them in seven days, but choose not to, citing one dispute or the other, even though there are contracts in place.
He said public participation was a major challenge as government officials go to non-English speaking communities, give them documents typed in English, and claim to have completed the process.