A recent Auditor-General's report detailing massive tender corruption across South Africa's nine provinces once again illustrates just how easy it has become to manipulate government contracts. But, worse still, the report only lists tender fraud found in 247 projects worth R6.6-billion in the health and education provincial departments. In some instances, contracts were awarded without even going through the tender process while, in others, contractors delivered incomplete or shoddy work and still managed to receive substantial payments.
As Themba Godi, chairman of the standing committee on public accounts, said after receiving the AG's report last week: "So much has been spent and very little has been delivered." This is, indeed, the crux of the problem. For failure to deliver government infrastructure, particularly in the areas of health and education, goes far beyond the depletion of the public purse. It goes to the heart of service delivery. A clinic not completed in a rural area means that the poorest South Africans are denied access to basic healthcare. And a school that is never completed translates into hundreds of children being taught under trees or in mud structures.
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced earlier this year a range of measures meant to curtail tender fraud. Along with publishing a blacklist of tenderers, Gordhan said Treasury approval would have to be sought for tenders in excess of R10-million. The AG's report shows just how entrenched tender corruption has become and how easy it is for both public servants and unscrupulous contractors to fleece the government. This must then raise the question - even with the purest of intentions and the greatest of will: can the tide be turned on corruption?
Source: Times Live
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