MBOMBELA – The Mpumalanga Provincial Government spent almost R400 million on consultants in 2014/15, although they were not used effectively.
According to the Auditor General’s (AG) general report on the audit outcomes of Mpumalanga for 2014/15, provincial government departments spent R397,5 million on consultants to supplement their human resources capacity.
Their services were mostly used for engineering, project management and IT services, “mostly due to an inability to attract qualified people in those fields.”
Yet, “auditees did not have the capacity to adequately plan the effective and efficient use of consultants, resulting in weak project management.”
The AG found that those used for financial reporting had material misstatements in their work, there were no clauses relating to the transfer of skills in health or the Departments of Agriculture, Rural Development, Land and Environmental Administration, nor evidence that any skills had been transferred in health or education.
Health used consultants for financial reporting despite employing “a fully staffed finance unit”.
Health and the Department of Community Safety Security and Liaison also failed to adequately monitor consultants, according to the AG.
He recommended that skills be matched to positions and positions in departments exempted from the moratorium on filling vacant funded posts (except in Health and Education) be filled urgently.
Premier David Mabuza recently announced that the moratorium will not be lifted soon, as the province’s fiscal share was projected to be cut by close to R1 billion in the financial year, starting in April.
He said the provincial government would consider
shifting more money from the compensation of employees into an investment infrastructure programmes on the provincial budget as the provincial government had to concentrate on capital investment.
“I am calling on all the departments to understand that the current economic situation is extremely challenging, we must tighten our belts and ensure that there are no wastages.
“Again there will be no appointments of new employees into the provincial government in the coming financial year. We may, however, give an opportunity in the departments of health and education to hire, as there are serious challenges there.”
Among the AG’s recommendations were that the executive council approve the justification and extent of contracted services and also obtain a plan to address vacancies and skills shortages.
Treasury spokesman Mr Letshela Jonas said the issue of utilisation of consultants has always been on their radar.
“Finance MEC Mr Sikhumbuzo Eric Kholwane has said the use of consultants by public institutions, although not encouraged, must result in value-add or return on investment for the provincial government.
“Treasury tracks and reports on the implementation of the recommendations of the AG’s findings as part of its ongoing task of improving financial governance in the province.
“Departments are and will always be encouraged to include a clause on skills transfer in the service-level agreements with the companies that work with the government to deliver the services.”
Mr James Masango, DA MPL, said that party urged provincial government to stop wasting money and to implement measures aimed at retaining skilled people in the province.
Masango said they reported the AG’s recommendations, “In order to remedy this situation, a performance-management system must be implemented at all levels. This system should be adequately monitored, in order to appropriately deal with poor performance.
“The province needs to ensure that skills and competencies are matched to positions, resources are allocated timeously, and positions are filled urgently in the departments exempted from the moratorium on the filling of vacancies.”
He said the DA would ask National Treasury to conduct a full forensic investigation into the use of consultants in Mpumalanga departments.
The departments of health and education did not respond to the newspaper’s questions on their utilisation of consultants.
