Speaker 1: Sixteen past four. Let's turn into that story about the
Speaker 1: security bills that have been budgeted for by the Karting
Speaker 1: Department of Health. The story is an excellent one. You
Speaker 1: freeda Hoe wrote it for Spotlight, printed on or reproduced
Speaker 1: on the Daily Maverick site. I recommend you read it.
Speaker 1: I'll read you the first sentence. In just two years,
Speaker 1: the Karting Health department spending on security has more than tripled.
Speaker 1: Moving into the story, they project to spend two point
Speaker 1: five to four billion RAND on security contracts for the
Speaker 1: twenty five twenty six financial year. It's received a thumbs
Speaker 1: up from everybody who has to approve it. And she
Speaker 1: adds quote it comes as the department claims to lack
Speaker 1: the funds to fill vacancies, pay all suppliers on time,
Speaker 1: or continuing or continue fulfilling doctors overtime contracts. And then
Speaker 1: there are all the things missing at hospital's cancer equipment,
Speaker 1: for example at Charlotte Matleke. To just mention one, Professor
Speaker 1: Alex Vondanhieffer joins us now from the vis School of
Speaker 1: Governance for his thoughts. Prof welcome and thanks for your time.
Speaker 1: You look very closely, for example at the abuse of
Speaker 1: spending at Tenbisa Hospital and other instances. What's actually going
Speaker 1: on here is this inefficiency or is there something darker?
Speaker 2: Well? The history of expenditure an irregular expenditure within the
Speaker 2: Houting Department of Health suggests that we should look very
Speaker 2: very closely at this, this kind of escalation and to
Speaker 2: these kind of contractors and where what the contract goes
Speaker 2: to politically connected individuals and their families suggest that this
Speaker 2: isn't because it's needed for the Houting Department of Health.
Speaker 2: So they've had a history of irregular expenditure which ranges
Speaker 2: from around about sort of four to five percent of
Speaker 2: the overall budget every year and it doesn't change, which
Speaker 2: means that they are appear to be immune in terms
Speaker 2: of the Public Finance Management Act to any kind of
Speaker 2: consequence management right, which suggests that this potentially will fall
Speaker 2: into that if properly investigated, but they don't appear to care.
Speaker 2: They also have about five billion rands worth on average
Speaker 2: five billion rands worth of a cruels or basically unpaid
Speaker 2: debts during every year, so they're in financial difficulties always.
Speaker 2: They have massive irregular expenditure and they also don't spend
Speaker 2: all their budgets, such as on the cancer equipment which
Speaker 2: they were meant to spend on. So their priorities are
Speaker 2: all over the place and this doesn't appear to make sense.
Speaker 1: So in youw Freida's articles, she quotes Jack Bloom, who's
Speaker 1: the DAS spokesperson on or not spokesperson but the pers
Speaker 1: shadow NEC I think is the correct title on health matters.
Speaker 1: And the example given that really jumped out for me.
Speaker 1: Tara Hospital. There's a new security contract fourteen million Rand
Speaker 1: a year. Last year it was four point two million round.
Speaker 1: The argument justifying this is that they've now increased the
Speaker 1: number of gods from twenty one to forty six, this
Speaker 1: despite the department's own assessment saying they only needed five
Speaker 1: additional guards. And then they also talk about how Tarra
Speaker 1: Hospital actually can't use fifty of its one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty seven beds because it doesn't have enough nurses. I
Speaker 1: get that hospitals need to be secure profit, but they're
Speaker 1: not in battle zones, are they?
Speaker 2: No? You'd want so security assessments for hospitals will look
Speaker 2: at entrances, exits, you know, sort of perimeter protection and security,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So you should have a proper evaluation of
Speaker 2: your security requirements before you lay out funds, and you
Speaker 2: shouldn't be contracting with politically connected individuals, which they are
Speaker 2: doing in this particular case. And so all of that
Speaker 2: suggests that they might this might not be required in
Speaker 2: a hospital like Tyra. It's a psychiatric hospital with yes,
Speaker 2: very sort of low volumes of patients overall, on very
Speaker 2: very large grounds, very easy establishment to manage from a
Speaker 2: security perspective, So it looks like massive overkill for that hospital.
Speaker 2: That's if any of these people actually pitch up to
Speaker 2: provide security. So it doesn't look as if this is
Speaker 2: based on any kind of proper security evaluation, and is
Speaker 2: clearly not the highest priority at the moment in the
Speaker 2: provincial Health department.
Speaker 1: So what are those priorities? I mean, what is money
Speaker 1: not being spent on spent on profit? If you were
Speaker 1: to draw up a priority list, clearly this is not
Speaker 1: anywhere in the top ten, I would think, But what's
Speaker 1: your top three?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I'd be trying to make savings
Speaker 2: within the department, but the priority would be making sure
Speaker 2: that the services, the critical posts are filled within the department,
Speaker 2: that the equipment is properly maintained, so that which is
Speaker 2: crucial in the case of cancer treatment, but not only
Speaker 2: cancer treatment, everything else, all the idiological equipment needs to
Speaker 2: be properly maintained and secured. So the whole the asset
Speaker 2: themselves needs to be managed. And then there's the actual
Speaker 2: facilities themselves. A lot of that is just squandered. It
Speaker 2: doesn't it just seems to vaporize. It goes to the
Speaker 2: Department of Infrastructural Development kind of top slice to them
Speaker 2: and then doesn't appear to end up in lifts. And
Speaker 2: then maintaining the physical facilities at all within these thirty
Speaker 2: six hospitals and clinics, so the facilities must be maintained,
Speaker 2: the staff must be there, the critical if if you've
Speaker 2: got some austerity that you're dealing with, you must still
Speaker 2: maintain your critical posts and so those become your priorities.
Speaker 2: Security is important, but you've also got to manage security efficiently.
Speaker 2: If you've got providers who are there because of dodgy tenders,
Speaker 2: they're not going to secure your facilities. They're going to
Speaker 2: probably allow quite a lot of theft to occur within
Speaker 2: those facilities. So it's the random security con tracks don't
Speaker 2: protect the facilities, proper security arrangements do. It doesn't appear
Speaker 2: as if that's what this is about.
Speaker 1: Alex funding here for joining us from the vis School
Speaker 1: of Governance