The DA in the North West has raised concerns over the provincial government’s failure to spend the allocated conditional grant funding intended for infrastructural projects.
In response to the DA’s written questions, Finance MEC Motlalepula Rosho acknowledged that provincial government departments failed to spend over R1,063 billion during the 2021/22 financial year.
This failure to utilise the budget comes in light of the failure of the North West government to deliver essential services to its residents including clean water and sanitation, road infrastructure and health services.
This has led to several protests across the province where disgruntled communities have rioted, sometimes barricading roads and vandalising infrastructure.
The DA’s Chief Whip in the North West legislature, Freddy Sonakile, said the conditional grant funds were intended to improve bulk infrastructure, ensure provincial roads maintenance, establish early childhood development centres, and expand the National School Nutrition Programme in North West.
This the breakdown on the amounts that were not utilised by each department:
- The Department of Health failed to spend over R256 million.
- The Department of Public Works and Roads failed to use nearly R380 million.
- The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development forfeited over R85 million to the National Treasury.
- The North West Provincial Government returned R445 million in unspent conditional grant funding, from the total R1 billion back to the National Treasury.
“The failure of these departments to spend the conditional grants will have a devastating impact on residents of the province. This will also impact the conditional grant funding allocation to the province over the next financial year, resulting in less development in the North West.
“North West is in an advanced state of general decay due to the inability of the ANC-led provincial government to ensure improved service delivery and infrastructure development. Residents of North West can ill afford provincial departments losing 41% of their conditional grant funding,” Sonakile said.
However, North West Department of Finance spokesperson, Kesaolopa Gill, said the situation will be improved through monitoring programs.
“Provincial Treasury assesses monthly Section 40 reports of departments and provides these reports monthly to Broader Extech and Quarterly to EXCO, Provincial Legislature, and Audit Committee.
“Feedback reports to the oversight structures constitute the commitment by the Provincial Treasury and North West Government to improve expenditure performance through robust monitoring, evaluation, and tracking of budget implementation by departments.
“The feedback also provides an opportunity for the Accounting Officers to account for expenditure performance including service delivery targets.
“The current challenges experienced by departments are largely on the basis of capacity including slow implementation of their procurement plans that contribute to the slow spending by the departments.
“The Provincial Treasury working with the departments continuously works on processes to improve spending and ensure value for money. All risk factors that hinder spending and provision of service delivery are currently being addressed by the Accounting Officers of different departments and it is anticipated that the previous year’s performance would be improved,” said Gill.
