The chair of the health committee in the provincial legislature said the department had failed to spend its budget due to issues with financial controls and poor planning.

Listen to this article 8 min Listen to this article 8 min The Gauteng Department of Health (GDoH) failed to spend R1.1-billion of its 2023/24 budget.

This was revealed by the head of the department, Arnold Malotana, at a meeting last week of the Gauteng legislature's Health & Wellness Portfolio Committee. The department was allocated a budget of R60-billion for the 2023/2024 financial year.

advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove ads"It is a highly, highly undesirable way to run a health department," said the DA's Gauteng health spokesperson, Jack Bloom.

Bloom said that at the committee meeting, Malotana revealed that the GDoH had applied to Treasury to roll over R780-million of the unspent money into this financial year, but approval had not yet been given.

This meant that at least R320-million of last year's budget had been lost, and potentially a lot more if Treasury did not approve the rollover, said Bloom.

Reasons for underspending

The Gauteng health portfolio committee chair, Ezra Letsoalo, said there were several reasons for the underspending.

"It really has to do with the [in]ability of the department to manage its financial systems. Primarily, you have got challenges pertaining to financial controls and distribution...