Tamar Kahn
6 October 2008
Cape Town — The auditor-general has once again given the health department a qualified audit, highlighting its financial and institutional weaknesses.
Auditor-general Terence Nombembe said the department was unable to account satisfactorily for its tangible assets, a problem that was repeatedly highlighted by his predecessor, Shauket Fakie.
He also drew attention to a series of failings by the department to comply with the Division of Revenue Act and the Public Finance Management Act.
The department has received a qualified audit every year since 2004.
Nombembe said there had been significant underspending of the conditional grants channelled through the health department to the provinces.
The health department's annual report, tabled last week , shows R343,3m had not been spent by the provinces by the end of March .
The biggest area of under spending was on hospital revitalisation grants, with provinces failing to spend R241m of the allocated R2,1bn.
The auditor-general said the department had failed to fulfil its responsibilities to oversee provincial spending as laid out in the Division of Revenue Act, partly because it lacked the capacity to monitor provinces with quarterly visits and physical inspections.
Evaluation of information supplied by provinces was also cited as being poor, hampering its ability to identify problems swiftly.
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