The Eastern Cape Department of Health owes suppliers in the province an estimated R4.8-billion as its financial position remains precarious at best despite upbeat claims by the province's politicians that the turnaround plan for the department was going well.

When the new financial year starts next week, the Eastern Cape Department of Health will have R4.8-billion in unpaid bills for crucial medical supplies, fleet services, phone bills, medicine, medical gas and municipal services for the province's ambulances and hospital services.

The Department's landline phone bill alone is R36.5-million. Leaving this bill unpaid has caused an outage at all the province's emergency medical services call centres (for state ambulances). Telkom blocked the landlines to these call centres. The department initially described the problem as "a technical difficulty".

Officials had to scramble to set up a new system to tide them over until 1 April, when they could pay the bill.

The amount owing to suppliers represents 15% of the total allocation of R30.1-billion allocated to the Health Department by the Eastern Cape Treasury in this year's budget. Most of the money allocated in the budget goes to covering salaries in the department.

The Department's spokesperson, MK Ndamase, said they had decided that no official would be held responsible for unpaid bills, given the department's precarious financial situation.

Ndamase said the department had covered patient food, diesel, and medicine bills.

The accruals have doubled since a mid-year report, seen by Daily...