EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT BOUYED BY IMPROVED AUDIT OUTCOMES AS WORK TO CLAMP DOWN ON MALFEASANCE IN PUBLIC SERVICE CONTINUES –

WHILE tabling his fifth State of the Province Address (SOPA), Premier Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane gave a much welcomed progress report on the ongoing work by his administration to clamp down on the albatross that has weighed heavily on the neck and by extension the reputation of the Eastern Cape Province for far too long, corruption and malfeasance in the provincial public service.

Buoyed by the province’s improved audit outcomes during the 2021/22 financial cycle, the Premier was confident the Eastern Cape was well on its way to improved efficiencies in not only the administrative processes of the transversal government but would also translate into a significant shift in the quality of actual delivery of services to the citizens of the province.

Addressing a full siting of the Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature (ECPL) Premier Mabuyane recounted his administration’s efforts, “Madam Speaker, in 2022 we stood before this august house and committed to improve audit outcomes in our government institutions. I am happy to report that, the provincial government and its entities has for the 2021/22 financial year received the highest number of clean audits in the history of the province, achieving 14 clean audits”.

The Premier further outlined that in local government there had also been an improvement in the audit outcomes with 50% of municipalities on unqualified and 4 on clean audits.

“We are taking lessons to accelerate Operation Clean Audit. It is also important to note that irregular expenditure in the province decreased from R3 billion in 2020/2021 financial year to R1.35 billion in 2021/2022”, said Premier Mabuyane.

The Premier said his government was committed to conduct Lifestyle Audits of not only political leaders in government but also civil servants “as part of our quest for clean governance for a corruption-free administration”

“I am glad to report”, the Premier said, “that lifestyle audits for Premier, Members of the Executive Council and the Director General were conducted by the State Security Agency. The lifestyle audit will be cascaded to local government. Heads of Department and Senior Management Service have completed the annual financial disclosures, these have been analysed and there were no adverse findings”.

The Premier conceded that special focus would now have to be placed on lower levels of the civil service towards “prioritizing Supply Chain Management officials. We continue to rid our system of any employees (who trade with government) to eliminate any chances of public servants trading with government”.

Driving home his Anti-Corruption message the Premier concluded, “Our anticorruption machinery agencies are at work and investigations of reported cases are at different stages. The work of these agencies is starting to bear fruits as we can now report that of the 95 reported cases, 49 have already been referred to the courts of law. The Special Investigating Unit has completed investigating the 748 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) cases referred to them. Of these PPE transactions, 200 cases were found to be irregular. These have been referred for consequence management by respective institutions.